Many approaches have been proposed for the visualization of time series. The
reduced line charts (small multiples for time series) and the more recent
horizon graphs are two of these visualization techniques with benefits for
visualizing multiple time series that we propose to unify, using a variant of
the pan and zoom interaction on the y axis. We compare in a user study
reduced line charts, horizon graphs, and our own contribution---progressive
horizon graphs---for different tasks and numbers of concurrent time series
using datasets with small variations. While recent work has compared horizon
graphs with others visualization techniques and has made some recommendations
on their usability, the real advantages of this technique are not clear. The
results of our controlled user study show that progressive horizon graphs
overcome these two visualization techniques when the number of charts
increases.