Colormap-Based Effectiveness of Basic Visualizations

Abstract

When designing visual charts, effective color coding can help users access data information faster and more accurately. Colormaps are a commonly used method for scalar data visualization，which are usually designed using algorithmic techniques. However, the effectiveness of colormaps in mapping data to colors in visualization charts is not clear at present. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of colormaps application in visualization charts, this paper takes four basic visualization charts (bar chart, pie chart, scatter chart, and line chart) as the research object, and takes task completion time and accuracy rate as the index, quantitatively analyzing the application of blue, coolwarm, viridis, and jet in visualization charts. In addition, the Likert scale method was used to understand the subjective perception of users of the color maps.The results showes that the use of different colormaps had no significant effect on the participants' response time and correctness in completing the bar chart task, and a very significant effect on the pie and scatter charts. Participants were most accurate and took the shortest time on the graphs coded with viridis. The longest time was spent on the chart coded with blue and the accuracy was lower. The results of the Likert scale assessment showed that users found blue to be the least easy to read and the least aesthetically pleasing, and jet to be the most aesthetically pleasing and easy to read.