Use of Colors on Business Intelligence Dashboards
Posted By Dashboard Spy ~ 29th July 2010
Business Intelligence Dashboard Design – Use of Colors for Data Visualization
Colors can help you interpret the meaning of the metrics on your business intelligence dashboards. There are actually quite a few things to keep in mind when designing your business dashboards. Let’s take a look at using color.
A truly effective dashboard makes good use of color to display information in an easily understood manner. Color theory and the cognitive effects of color are subjects close to the hearts of visual artists, but seldom appreciated by creators of dashboards and other user interfaces. Be careful as the poor or careless use of color can mangle the real message of the data.
No discussion of color would be complete without a quick word on some fundamental warnings about the use of color in your dashboard projects.
It is estimated that up to 8 to 12 percent of the male population suffers from some form of color blindness.
Take a look at this series of graphics that show how the colors of the rainbow appear to people with various forms of color blindness:
Note how similar Yellow and Green can be to some color blind people and also how similar Red and Green can be to other color blind people. Now isn’t that eye-opening?
The other classic warning about colors has to do with black and white versus color printers. It is still uncommon at many offices to find a color printer. Many users send their dashboards to the office printer so that they can study the hardcopy later. Most of those copies will be in gray scale.
So, what do we do about these basic color challenges? Do these limitation mean we should not use color on our dashboards? Of course not. It does mean, however, that we must always use color in conjunction with text labels.
By that I mean explicitly including the relevant label right on or next to the graphic. For example, if you are showing a red/green/yellow status indicator graphic, put the text value right next to the graphic.
With that basic warning out of the way, let’s look at some critical rules to follow concerning the use of color in your dashboards.
Be aware of the background color of tables and graphs. Use a background color that contrasts sufficiently with the foreground objects. Also, use background color to group and unify different objects.
Components of graphs and tables that are “non-data”, that is, structural elements, should not call attention to themselves. Conversely, the data-centric elements of charts should be highlighted with color.
When displaying a sequential or related group of metrics, use a small set of related hues and vary the intensity to correlate with the increasing data values if possible.
Try to make the color usage meaningful. Use different colors to show different meanings.
Use color consciously – check with yourself that each color (or the particular usage of colors) is meaningful.
Note that the above guidelines refer to the sections of your dashboards that contain data. The rest of the dashboard (page background, navigation elements, branding areas, headers and footers may be designed to accommodate your usual graphic look and feel.
Tags: Business Intelligence Dashboard Design – Use of Color for Data Visualization
