A map in which size represents county size we need to use color to distinguish the value for each county.Two examples of this are show in the “In Context” section above: But in some visualizations, the size is set and you need to rely on color. In a pie chart or bar chart, size is used to distinguish higher values. Typically, the darker variation will represent a higher value, and a neutral color (even white) will represent a value closer to zero. The Single Hue Scale generator is most useful for visualizations where you’re showing the value of a single variable. Is there another feature you'd like to see in it? Let me know. The Design Newsletter, where I send original design articles to 50,000+ of my closest friends.Īnyhow, I've created this to be the tool I wish I had for creating data visualization palettes.Color in UI Design: A Practical Framework.The HSB Color System: A Practitioner's Primer.If you're new to color in UI design, I highly recommend the following resources: For data visualizations where you’re showing the strength of a single value, try using the Single Hue Palette Generator instead.Users will recognize your brand color by its hue much far more than by it’s exact saturation/brightness.

If you’re using a brand color for one endpoint, don’t be afraid to modify the saturation and brightness a bit if it creates a more pleasing palette.

one warm, one cool one bright, one darker – so that your palette covers a wider range

Try picking very different endpoint colors – e.g.

Here are a few tips for getting the best palette:

You can choose at least one to be a brand color, which gives you significant flexibility in creating a palette that will work for your visualizations, yet be customized for your brand. This color picker allows you to specify both endpoints of the palette. It’s far simpler for our brains to distinguish, say, yellow from orange than blue from blue-but-15%-lighter. It’s better to use use a range of hues so users can cross-reference with the key easier. I’m sure we’ve all looked at charts where you can hardly use the key since the data colors are so similar.įor instance, Google Analytics does a terrible job with this: Just try to use this key. Why? When colors are not visually equidistant, it’s harder to (a) tell them apart in the chart, and (b) compare the chart to the key. Note: there are two other modes besides palette mode – check out single-hue scales and divergent scales as well.Ĭreating visually equidistant palettes is basically impossible to do by hand, yet hugely important for data visualizations. This is useful for many data visualizations, like pie charts, grouped bar charts, and maps. Use the palette chooser to create a series of colors that are visually equidistant.

Color generator