Using color

Understanding Data Visualization

Richie Cotton

Data Evangelist at DataCamp

Colorspaces: Red-Green-Blue

Colorspaces: Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-blacK

Choosing a plotting palette

• Usually, each color should stand out as much as other colors.
• The perceptual distance from one color in the plot to the next should be constant.

Colorspaces: Hue-Chroma-Luminance

Colorspaces: Hue-Chroma-Luminance

Colorspaces: Hue-Chroma-Luminance

Three types of color scale: qualitative

Type	Purpose	What to vary
qualitative	Distinguish unordered categories	hue

Qualitative palette example

Three types of color scale: sequential

Type	Purpose	What to vary
sequential	Show ordering	chroma or luminance

Sequential palette example

Another sequential palette example

¹ Viridis color scale: https://bids.github.io/colormap

Three types of color scale: diverging

Type	Purpose	What to vary
diverging	Show above or below a midpoint	chroma or luminance, with 2 hues

Green Tech in Malaysia survey dataset

question	response	n
Uses reliable and repairable	Strongly Disagree	4
Uses reliable and repairable	Disagree	8
Uses reliable and repairable	Neutral	37
Uses reliable and repairable	Agree	52
Uses reliable and repairable	Strongly Agree	26
...	...	...

¹ Islam et al. (2019) http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/wggvryfhsk.1

Diverging palette example

Let's practice!

Understanding Data Visualization