One of our goals when designing
visualizations should be to help accelerate the analysis process for the
analyst. There are many ways to do this, one of which includes being conscious
about color resonance…or how colors might resonate with our audience.
So how can color choice speed up
analysis? Let’s look at a few examples.
In this first example, rank Sprite,
Coke and Sunkist in order by sales:
Obviously it can be done, but how
efficiently? I think most would agree that this next graph, in which we’ve
changed only the color, requires much less time and effort to analyze:
This is because the colors in the
second chart in most cases will resonate with the audience. “Thanks” to to
heavy marketing of these brands, we associate red with Coke, Green with Sprite
and Orange with Sunkist. (Granted, labeling the bars would have helped quite a
bit as well)
We could provide seemingly endless
examples, but I’ll leave you with this last one that came up when I was at
Cisco. In the 2 charts below, I challenge you to determine which is a larger,
the ‘% of blue badge’ or ‘% of red badge’ employees?
The second one should be much easier
to analyze. Now this may seem silly and petty, but keep in mind that dashboards
often have multiple charts so the time lost can easily multiply.
(although many, myself included, might
argue it’s still a pie so it still “sucks”…at least it’s binary)
Color can be a great mark type for
categorizing your data. Just keep in mind that all color should be used with
purpose. So when you have a chance to use colors that will resonate with your
audience, consider doing so.
Cheers!
Kevin A. Taylor
