Susceptibility of domain experts to color manipulation indicate a need for design principles in data visualization

Color is key for the visual encoding of data, yet its use reportedly affects decision making in important ways. We examined the impact of various popular color schemes on experts’ and lay peoples’ map-based decisions in two, geography and neuroscience, scenarios, in an online visualization experimen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPloS one Vol. 16; no. 2; p. e0246479
Main Authors Christen, Markus, Brugger, Peter, Fabrikant, Sara Irina
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 04.02.2021
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Age
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain research
Cartography
Climate change
Climate change models
Climate models
Climate prediction
Cognitive ability
Color
Computer and Information Sciences
Data visualization
Decision making
Design standards
Domains
Drafting software
Earth science
Earth Sciences
Ecosystems
Editing
Electronic mail systems
Emission measurements
Engineering and Technology
Environmental changes
Gender
Geographic information science
Geography
Medical imaging
Nervous system
Neuroimaging
Neurosciences
Positron emission
Positron emission tomography
Professionals
Psychiatry
Rainbows
Rehabilitation
Remote sensing
Research and Analysis Methods
Scientific visualization
Social Sciences
Subject specialists
Tomography
Trust
Visualization
Switzerland
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Summary:Color is key for the visual encoding of data, yet its use reportedly affects decision making in important ways. We examined the impact of various popular color schemes on experts’ and lay peoples’ map-based decisions in two, geography and neuroscience, scenarios, in an online visualization experiment. We found that changes in color mappings influence domain experts, especially neuroimaging experts, more in their decision-making than novices. Geographic visualization experts exhibited more trust in the unfavorable rainbow color scale than would have been predicted by their suitability ratings and their training, which renders them sensitive to scale appropriateness. Our empirical results make a strong call for increasing scientists’ awareness for and training in perceptually salient and cognitively informed design principles in data visualization.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0246479