Presented at the ICC 2013 pre-confernece workshop "mapping in a digital world"

1. beate.weninger@hcu-hamburg.de
@beaweb
Color for Online Mapping:
Still Difficult to Choose
ICC 2013 pre-conference workshop "Mapping in a digital world"

2. Motivation
Official traffic noise map of the city of Hamburg Color scale according DIN 18005-2

3. Color and Cartography // Color Advice

4. Colors of a scale should according to Levkowitz (1996):
1. „Preserve the order of the original values“;
2. “convey uniformity among values they are
representing, and representative distances between
them; and
3. create no artificial boundaries that do not exist in the
original data.”
Color and Cartography // Guidelines

5. Color and Cartography // Color Perception
 Physical reactions, e.g.
 Simultaneous contrast (1)
 Perception of object size
 Effect of object size
 Depth effect (2)
Lübbe 2013
(2)
(1)

6. Color and Cartography // Color Perception
 Psychological reactions, e.g.
 Color perception is influenced by the object (shape)
 Emotional reactions
 Trust issues

7. Color and Cartography // Color Perception
 Color vision deficiencies
Official color scale according DIN 18005-2 transformed

8. Color Design Aspects for Webmapping
1. Harmonical hierarchy
 Only systematic variation of lightness and saturation
 Consider spatial distribution for balanced scales (order,
complexity, object size)
2. Nature of the Scale: logarithmic etc.
3. Consistency
4. Qualitative meaning
5. Consider CVDs and situational CVDs

9. Design Challenges
 Variety of screen sizes
and use cases
 Practitioners‘ wish list
 Many classes
 Flexible scale
 Traffic light system

10. New Scale // Qualitative Aspects
Different hues in a harmonical order with few lightness steps per hue supports
recognition!
Card sorting task
showed: users
would order
greens differently!

11. New Scale // CVD
Normal Vision deuteranopia (green-blindness) protanopia (red-blindness)

12. Conclusion // Focusing on Neocartography
 How can we abandon rainbow and traffic light schemes?
(Why are they still available in software?)
 Do screen sizes and use cases effect color perception?
 Clear rules are needed that support map-makers from a
non-traditional background
 ColorBrewer 2.0 extension?
Let`s bring the topic back on the to-do list!

13. Conclusion // Focusing on Neocartography
 How can we abandon rainbow and traffic light schemes?
(Why are they still available in software?)
 Do screen sizes and use cases effect color perception?
 Clear rules are needed that support map-makers from a
non-traditional background
 ColorBrewer 2.0 extension?
Let`s bring the topic back on the to-do list!
# What’s the map-maker’s aim?
(raise awareness, bring forward an
argument, aesthetic map…)
# What’s most important:
discriminability of colors, trust in
the map, visualize distribution of
values…
# Is there a critical value in the
scale that should be highlighted?
# ….

14. More on Color
ICC Papers on color:
 Weninger: The Effects of Colour on the Interpretation of Traffic Noise in
Strategic Noise Maps
 Kröger, Schiewe, Weninger: Analysis and Improvement of the OpenStreetMap
Street Color Scheme for Users with Color Vision Deficiencies
beate.weninger@hcu-hamburg.de
@beaweb

15. References
 Levkowitz, H. (1996). Perceptual Steps along Color Scales. International
Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology 7, 97–101.
 Lübbe, E. (2012). Farbempfindung, Farbbeschreibung und Farbmessung: Eine
Formel für die Farbsättigung. Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.