Importance of Color Palettes in Data Visualization
Here is an interesting post by Michael E. Driscoll at Data Evolution blog about importance of color in data visualization and how it has been ignored most of the time. Michael writes
Color is one of the most abused and neglected tools in data visualization. It is abused when we make poor color choices; it is neglected when we rely on poor software defaults. Yet despite its historically poor treatment at the hands of engineers and end-users alike, if used wisely, color is unrivaled as a visualization tool.
Believe it or not, most of time we use default color settings provided by software. It may be because our laziness, or ignorance or let say because we are mostly unaware about importance of color patterns in data visualization. Michael further saysThe defining challenge of data visualization is projecting high dimensional data onto a low dimensional canvas. (As a rule, one should never do the reverse: visualize more dimensions than what already exist in the data).
That’s very correct, color coding provides additional displayable dimension on the same low dimensional canvas, and most importantly color is itself multidimensional. This discussion can not be complete without mention of another interesting article Choosing Colors for Data Visualization by Maureen Stone. Maureen who is color consultant to Tableau Software suggests that
Color used well can enhance and clarify a presentation. Color used poorly will obscure, muddle and confuse. While there is a strong aesthetic component to color, using color well in information display is essentially about function: what information are trying to convey, and how (or whether) color can enhance it.An effective design presents information in an organized manner, making it easy for the viewer to understand the roles and the relationships between the elements. A good organizing principle is to define categories of information, grouped by function and ordered by importance. An effective use of color will group related items and command attention in proportion to importance. And, all will be legible.
References:
- Data visualization-Color lecture by Jason Chuang
- Information Visualization
- Choosing effective colours for data visualization
3 Responses to “Importance of Color Palettes in Data Visualization”
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[...] this blog I have always advocated about requirement of better visualization practices for the scientific... abhishek-tiwari.com/2010/08/points-of-view-getting-real-about-visual-representations-of-scientific-data.html
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Importance of Color Palettes in Data Visualization: Here is an interesting post by Michael E. Driscoll at Data E.. http://tinyurl.com/clrved
Hi,
Can you please elaborate on what you mean by “and most importantly color is itself multidimensional”
Thanks
Saqib