Strategic Use of Colors in Charts [Chart Review]
The first set of charts below show the country location of the 20 biggest companies. For the purposes of this post, I am going to ignore the fact that they happen to be pie charts. Also, the set of boxes in the bottom chart, were one large stacked column chart in the print edition of BusinessWeek. The stacked column chart lists the market cap of the 20 biggest companies in descending order.
Now we get to the point of this post; the colors are coordinated between the pie charts and the stacked column chart. If you want to see the 21% that makes up Western Europe, you can quickly see all of the black segments within the boxes or column chart.
In the stacked column chart you will find:
- Market Cap in Dollars as of 2008
- Top 20 Rank 2007
- Top 20 Rank 2008
- 2008 percent change
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I am not suggesting that the choice of colors or charts is optimal; I’m saying that the use of color adds value to the visualization and helps tell the story. Do you agree?
Most Commented Posts
January 8th, 2009 at 9:24 am
yes , I agree . color do add value to chart.
there is no optimal color or chart ,there is only appropriate ones .
in this case ,the color and chart are both quite good ,in my opion.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Not quite. Colour _can_ add value to a visualisation. But inappropriate use of colour will detract value. Here’s an article with some tips for using color in visualisations: http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/rules_for_using_color.pdf
For those interested in a deeper understanding of the use of colour I suggest taking a good look at “A Field Guide to Digital Color” by Maureen Stone.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Careful use of color can be useful, but it’s easier to overdo it. You should stay away from colors which are associated with other meanings (for instance, red-yellow-green) unless you want to incorporate those meanings into your visual. It’s also better to use less saturated colors for fills; deeper colors are more tiring to look at (or at least I feel that way).
January 9th, 2009 at 10:33 am
It looks to me like the creator of that graphic made a commendable, if naive, attempt at a monochrome or single-hued color scheme, using only the available reds and grays. Its a bit unbalanced because they didn’t get a good selection of colors, but full marks for trying.
I’m currently experimenting with one-hue schemes myself, but I’m not sure what a good even-tempered sequence of saturations is. Any ideas, apart from the obvious linear sequence from 0% to 100%? My luminosities are a geometric scale of color to not-color, as per Bertin.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
@Liu – I think it can add value as long as it is done effectively/conservatively, like the others comments suggest.
@Nixnut – I absolutely agree that color and add/take away from a visualization. There is a fine line that needs to be walked to make sure it isn’t overdone. Also, the link that you shared of S. Few, I have seen before and think is exceptional. The ideas and methods are presented in a very straightforward way that can be applied to anyone creating visualizations. Thanks for the book suggestion; I’ll have to check it out.
@Jon – Very good point; I absolutely agree. Maybe that’s what I was thinking when reviewing these charts – the color choice is tiring. I think the color choice (palettes) in Excel 2007 is very good and goes with your point.
@Derek – A for effort to BusinessWeek. I wouldn’t have picked the colors they did, which goes to my last comment in the post. The intention of the post was the idea of matching colors between two different charts to maximize effectiveness. I don’t know the most effective color saturation mix, but I do really like the color themes in Excel 2007. They seem to be 20, 40, 60, 80, 100. I typcially don’t spend too much time on perfecting color. I use what’s easily available. Let me know what you find out.