I am trying to design a screen that displays multiple product subscriptions purchased through time. While a Gantt chart perfectly captures the requirement, I have been trying to find an alternate way to represent this data. Any ideas would be most appreciated.

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    What questions are you trying to answer, at a glance, with the chart? For example, are you trying to show the total number of subscriptions purchased on each day (or is it week, or month)? Or is it the number of daily subscriptions for each product? Also, if the Gantt chart "perfectly captures the requirement", what is your aversion to using it? – Michael Heraghty Mar 16 '18 at 10:06
  • I am trying to show a user the licenses he has at any point in time. A user could for example have a license for Gmail and Google Calendar but not Google Drive. This smallest time unit would be a quarter/3 months. The Gantt Chart uses a lot of color to distinguish different products and I feel that I need something simpler - hence the question. – letterhead Mar 16 '18 at 10:20
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    A Gantt chart in no way implies use of color. That's a design treatment that is often applied to any chart. Color might be useful to highlight things like subs expiring in the next n days or to categorize by function or price. Either way, as @MichaelHeraghty pointed out, it's probably the best visualization. – plainclothes Mar 20 '18 at 19:24

Gantt Chart without colour

I agree with you that the Gantt Chart is the optimal chart to quickly convey this information.

You suggest the Gantt Chart "uses a lot of color to distinguish different products". I recommend you try removing the color from the Gantt chart.

In fact, color isn't necessary, and probably only adds distraction -- as having a different color bar for each product/subscription could soon become garish.

See my example design, attached.

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