Affective Color Scales for Colormap Data Visualizations

Area of Science:

• Information Visualization
• Perception Psychology

Background:

• Color significantly influences the emotional perception of visualizations.
• Lightness of color is a primary driver of color-emotion associations (light=positive, dark=negative).
• Designing for pure light or dark colors can hinder spatial detail in data visualizations using color to represent patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if colormaps can maintain affective connotation while preserving lightness contrast for spatial vision.
• To explore the influence of color scale and data-dependent color frequency on affective connotation.
• To highlight the importance of data-aware design in affective visualization.

Main Methods:

• Developed and evaluated colormaps designed for both lightness contrast and affective communication.
• Assessed how color scale choices and the frequency of color appearance (data-dependence) impact perceived emotion.
• Utilized principles of visual perception and affective design.

Main Results:

• It is feasible to create colormaps with strong lightness contrast that also convey distinct affective connotations.
• Affective connotation is influenced by both the chosen color scales and the underlying data's distribution of colors.
• The data-dependence hypothesis was supported, showing data characteristics impact perceived emotion.

Conclusions:

• Affective colormap design is achievable, balancing visual clarity with emotional impact.
• Effective affective visualization requires considering how data characteristics interact with design elements like color.
• Data-aware design is crucial for creating visualizations that are both informative and emotionally resonant.