Get startedGet started for free

Another dimension for line plots

As with points in a scatter plot, you may often want to be able to distinguish several lines in a line plot. Like points, you can change the colors or transparency level, or use multiple panels. The two differences to points are that you can change line widths rather than point sizes, and you can change linetype (solid, dashes, or dots) rather than point shape.

The line plot shows the stock price for five technology companies collectively known as "FAAMG": Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG). The prices have been adjusted for dividends and splits, then scaled to be relative to their highest price over the time period so they are more easily comparable.

Explore different options for distinguishing lines from the five companies, then determine which statement is false.

Data source: Yahoo Finance

This exercise is part of the course

Understanding Data Visualization

View Course

Hands-on interactive exercise

Turn theory into action with one of our interactive exercises

Start Exercise