Graphs and Charts

Graphs and charts are usually employed to represent the changing relationship of one thing to another. A common usage is to show changes over time – costs, turnover or profits over a period of time, for example. Other useful examples include the Learning Curve – which shows the development of a skill as time passes – and the Product Life Cycle – which shows the likely pattern of sales over the life of a product.

The learning curve changes shape over time, showing that people will sometimes show rapid improvement, but at other times will plateau.

At the beginning, if learning is successful, there can be rapid improvements in performance over a short period of time (at part A of the curve) which then level out into a plateau (at point B) . As different parts of the skill are assimilated, performance may improve again (at point C) after a while before again flattening out into a plateau.