PSA: I keep seeing charts where the only difference between lines is color.

I was looking at a sales report at work yesterday, and the line chart had four trends on it. They were only told apart by being red, green, blue, and orange. For me, with my red-green colorblindness, two of them looked identical. I had to ask my coworker which line was which, which was pretty awkward. It matters because charts are supposed to give you information fast, not make you ask for help. I know this is a common issue because I see it in presentations and online dashboards all the time. The fix is so simple: use different line styles like solid, dashed, and dotted along with the colors. Has anyone else run into this specific problem with line charts at their job?

2 comments

2 Comments

webb.stella14d ago

My district's data dashboard does this with five lines. I always have to print it in black and white just to guess which trend is which, which defeats the whole purpose. It's a basic accessibility fix that gets ignored way too often.

garcia.miles14d ago

Ugh, that sounds incredibly frustrating and all too common.