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USE COLOR MEANINGFULLY
3 Tips to Master your Sequential Palette
There are three color palettes used in data visualization: categorical, sequential, and diverging. Each one has its proper use and goes with a different data type. So if you are not sure what the differences are, I recommend taking a step back and checking this article first.
The sequential palette follows the order that correlates with perceived color lightness, also known as luminance or luminosity. Therefore, this palette is suited to data ranging from low to high values. It goes with an ordinal (e.g., Likert scale), interval (e.g., temperature), or ratio scale (e.g., profit value). Usually, palettes go from a light color representing lower values to a dark color representing higher values.
The luminance is a result of all three perceptual dimensions of the color: hue, saturation (or chroma), and lightness (or brightness) [1]. Because of this complex correlation, a linear change in color’s luminance can be achieved in three different ways. Depending on which perceptual dimension we change, we distinguish three types of sequential palettes:
- Greyscale — if only lightness has changed
- Single hue — both lightness and color richness have changed
- Multi hue — hue, color richness, and lightness have changed