Graph Styles
We debate every pixel at Redfin.
On Friday the debate was about background color of graphs.
White background:
Or gray background:
Mose, one of our developers with a flair for statistics found this quote justifying gray:
“The grey background gives the plot a similar colour (in a typographical sense) to the remainder of the text, ensuring that the graphics fit in with the flow of a text without jumping out with a bright white background. Finally, the grey background creates a continuous field of colour which ensures that the plot is perceived as a single visual entity.”
As well as, Using Gray in Plots:
The grid lines in Figure 1 are white lines on a light gray background (assuming decent color reproduction). The Washington Post commonly uses this approach. Cleveland’s plots use gray grid lines on a white background. I have a slight preference for white lines on a gray background since the gray background reduces the contrast and gives the plot more of a value-added appearance. With light gray and white both methods provide unobtrusive reference grids.
Thoughts?
June 30th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I prefer the white background for the simple fact that it “looks” lighter.
It has a lighter feel to the page, rather then being heavy. It could be simply the color style of this blog, and that if you threw up the chart onto a site with a completely different color scheme it would look better with a grey background.
And it also (because the lines are thinner I think) looks more precise. Not that the data is different at all, but it *appears* that the chart with white background/thinner lines is plotting more data points.
Perhaps I have a negative reaction to the grey chart because it looks too similar to a default excel chart for my tastes.
Just my 2 cents
July 1st, 2008 at 2:09 am
White looks better. As for the “jumping out” problem, just lighten all the other colors in the graph, like Apple’s Numbers does by default. Make the black lines grey, the black numbers grey, and subdue the colors of the lines slightly.