Pattern overlay saved my data dashboard

My boss kept misreading the green and red status indicators on our sales tracker, and I realized she has red-green colorblindness. I added diagonal line patterns to the green boxes and dots to the red ones, and now she can tell them apart instantly. Only took about 20 minutes in Figma to set up the pattern library. Has anyone else used textures this way for charts or tables?

3 comments

3 Comments

james_butler10d ago

Did you just add the patterns to the original file or export them as PNGs? I did something similar on a project dashboard my crew uses for tracking job supplies. Color coding was fine for me but one of my guys kept mixing up the blue and purple tags we used for different pipe grades. I just added a simple crosshatch to one and a grid of dots to the other. Took like 15 minutes in Canva actually, nothing fancy. Has made a world of difference for him though, zero mixups since then.

patricia38510d ago

Is it true that adding simple patterns actually helps people with color blindness? I read somewhere that like 1 in 12 guys have some form of it, and it's way more common than people realize. @james_butler, your fix sounds exactly like what that article was talking about. It makes sense though, because patterns give a second way to tell things apart besides just color. I remember them saying that relying only on colors is a bad idea in any kind of workplace setting. Crosshatch and dots are a pretty standard solution too, I hear.

ivancoleman7d ago

Wait, @james_butler figured out Canva? That guy can barely work a microwave.