Sparklines are the lowest-resolution insight in nouz — but also the fastest. A glance at the four sparklines tells you the directional state of your business in two seconds.
01 What they show
Each sparkline is a daily line chart of its metric across the selected range. Tiny enough to be a glance-only thing; rich enough to show direction and rough volatility.
02 Reading direction
- Up-right slope — metric is trending up across the range.
- Down-right slope — trending down.
- Zigzag — high variance day-to-day. Often a weekday pattern (busy Sat, quiet Tue).
- Flat — stable. Sometimes the most desirable shape, depending on the metric.
03 When flat is good
For COGS as a percentage of revenue, flat means your margins are stable — exactly what you want. For variable costs, flat means they're scaling with revenue, not creeping. For EBIT, flat at a positive number is great; flat at a negative number is alarming. Direction matters as much as slope.
04 Distinguishing signal from noise
A 30-day sparkline naturally has weekday peaks and weekend troughs that look like zigzag. That's noise, not signal. The signal is the trend line through the noise — imagine drawing a smooth line through the middle. If that imaginary line is up, you're trending up regardless of the day-to-day bumps.
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