A Haiku about color in data visualization
I think the number one infraction in data visualization is the misuse of color.
If I were pressed for time and had to distill my recommendations on color into a Haiku, it would be this:
Make everything gray
Except the few things you think
Should be highlighted
Yes, this is simple, bordering on the simplistic, but it works in so many situations.
Consider the kaleidoscopic mess below on the left. What do you want the audience to make of this? It’s an overdose of categorical colors that provide no value. Now look at the chart on the right. The purposeful use of a highlight color makes it clear that you want people to compare Vietnam to the other countries.
There are only five ways to encode color in data visualization. Once you understand how to apply each of these approaches, your visualizations will be much more effective.
I make sure to cover the “five ways” in all my workshops. People who come in with headache-inducing visualizations leave with the ability to make clean, aesthetically pleasing visualizations that help your audience see what you want them to see.
?
Dashboards That Deliver: How to Design, Develop, and Deploy Dashboards That Work will be available September 2025.
Data Strategist | Visualization Enthusiast | Turning Data into Action for People in Crisis | Son, Husband & Father
1 个月Thank you for sharing this, Steve. Small, thoughtful design choices like purposeful use of color really do make all the difference. It reminded me of the Data Ink Ratio concept, a similar idea of decluttering visuals to focus on what truly matters: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/alenchalak_humdataviz-dataviz-infographics-activity-7256969785719083008-GBtZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Software Architect | Integrations Specialist | Technical Team Lead | AI Enthusiast
1 个月This is gold! completely agree.
Software Project LLM Integration, Forecasting and Data Analytics
1 个月I've also found making some data grey when it's incomplete, and completed data a vibrant pastel helps "encourage" action. For example, there was a dashboard of team survey reporting. Those teams that completed the survey were Tableau Blue (is that a real Pantone color yet?), and those teams that were tardy and did not have enough data to identify anomalies were grey. It quickly got fuller coverage because it was clear "there might be an issue, but we don't know yet." So, grey can be an important signal for "we have a blindspot here" although perhaps white might be better. Summary: Before we did this, those teams who didn't have data were just invisible. We used grey to motivate visibility.
Software Project LLM Integration, Forecasting and Data Analytics
1 个月I lead by example at my age. My grey hair demonstrates nothing to highlight here, move along....
Visual Analytics Expert at Inter-American Development Bank
1 个月I keep telling people to be careful with the use of color... but sometimes is a lost battle.