Zeitleiste

Zeitleiste, or a timeline, is a visualization that presents events in chronological order along a time axis. It is used to show sequence, simultaneity, and the durations between events, aiding understanding of historical development, project pacing, or process flows. Timelines can span large periods or focus on short intervals and may be simple or highly detailed.

A typical timeline includes a time axis with a scale, events marked along the line, and labels with dates or periods. Additional features often accompany timelines, such as milestones, annotations, categories, color coding, and multiple tracks to indicate parallel or overlapping activities.

Common types include historical timelines, life or biographical timelines, genealogical timelines, and project or product timelines. In some contexts, timelines emphasize duration and dependencies and are related to, but distinct from, Gantt charts used in project management.

Design and construction considerations involve defining the purpose, choosing the time span and granularity, collecting reliable dates, arranging events in order, and indicating uncertainty when dates are approximate. Clarity, readability, and accessibility are important, as is documenting sources.

Digital timelines offer interactivity, zooming, filtering, and multi-layer views, enabling more complex representations. Well-known tools and formats include web-based timeline generators and software such as TimelineJS, Tiki-Toki, Time.Graphics, and Sutori, as well as simpler spreadsheet-based approaches in Excel or Google Sheets.

Overall, Zeitleisten are versatile tools for education, research, and planning, balancing simplicity with the ability to convey rich chronological information.