When should I use a bump chart?

Tracking rank changes of a small set of items across discrete time periods ● Comparing competitive standings such as sports league tables or brand rankings ● Showing how relative positions shift rather than absolute values

When should I avoid a bump chart?

When you need to show the magnitude of differences between items ● When there are more than 10-12 items, as lines become tangled ● When time intervals are irregular and gaps matter

What are common mistakes with bump charts?

Including too many items, creating an unreadable spaghetti chart ● Not labelling start and end ranks clearly ● Using thin lines that are hard to distinguish

What data does a bump chart need?

Minimum 6 rows, 3 columns (string, number, date). Requires a category column, a time/period column, and a rank column.

Ranking

Bump Chart

Displays how the ranking of items changes over time using curved or straight lines that shift vertically to reflect position changes.

Team Rankings 2019-2022

How competitive positions shifted over four seasons

View data (12 rows)

Chart data table: Team Rankings 2019-2022
year	rank	team
2019	1	Alpha
2019	2	Beta
2019	3	Gamma
2020	2	Alpha
2020	1	Beta
2020	3	Gamma
2021	3	Alpha
2021	1	Beta
2021	2	Gamma
2022	1	Alpha
2022	3	Beta
2022	2	Gamma

Make a bump chart with your data

Use a bump chart when…

Tracking rank changes of a small set of items across discrete time periods
Comparing competitive standings such as sports league tables or brand rankings
Showing how relative positions shift rather than absolute values

Avoid when…

When you need to show the magnitude of differences between items
When there are more than 10-12 items, as lines become tangled
When time intervals are irregular and gaps matter

Data it needs

Property	Value
Min Rows	6
Min Columns	3
Column Types	stringnumberdate
Notes	Requires a category column, a time/period column, and a rank column.

Visual anatomy

Marks

linecircle

Channels

position-y (rank)color (item)position-x (time)

Axes

x-axis: time periodsy-axis: rank (inverted, 1 at top)

Guiding principles

Consider instead

Slope Chart

When comparing ranks between only two time points

Bar Chart Race

When you want an animated feel of rank changes

Common mistakes

Including too many items, creating an unreadable spaghetti chart
Not labelling start and end ranks clearly
Using thin lines that are hard to distinguish

History

Bump charts have circulated in sports infographics since at least the 1970s and were popularized for cycling's Tour de France general-classification tables. They descend from slope graphs and parallel-coordinate ideas, adapted specifically for ordinal rank data.

Accessibility notes

Provide a text table of rankings per period as an alternative. Use distinct colors with sufficient contrast and consider pattern-coded lines for color-blind users.

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