Welcome to our exploration of color theory in dashboard design, where the art and science of color come together to create visually compelling and effective data experiences. In this blog, we will unpack the principles, psychology, and practical applications of color in designing intuitive and impactful dashboards.

What is color theory?

Color theory is all about understanding how colors work together and how they make people feel. It helps us choose colors that look good together and create the right mood or message.

Why is it important?

Color theory in dashboard design is crucial because it directly influences user experience and comprehension of data. Thoughtful use of color enhances visual hierarchy, aids in highlighting key information, and improves overall readability. By leveraging color theory, designers can create dashboards that are not only visually appealing but also intuitive and effective in conveying complex information to users.

Choosing Dashboard Colors

When choosing colors for your dashboard there are 3 questions you can ask yourself that will guide you in your color palette selection.

1. Who is my audience?
   Whenever possible, choose colors that reflect your audience’s company branding. This is crucial because it maintains consistency across platforms, reinforces brand recognition, and strengthens the emotional connection between the audience and the company's visual identity.

2. What industry is the company in?
   Understanding the industry your audience is in allows you to choose colors that align with industry standards, evoke appropriate associations, and establish visual credibility within the sector.

3. What is the personality of the company?
   Understanding the personality of the company guides color choices towards reflecting its brand values, ethos, and identity, fostering a cohesive and authentic visual representation across the dashboard design.

Colors Have Meaning

Colors have inherent meanings and can evoke various emotions; for example, warm tones like red and orange often symbolize energy and passion, while cooler hues like blue and green can convey calmness and trustworthiness. Understanding these associations allows designers to strategically select colors that resonate with users and effectively communicate the intended message or mood within dashboard design.

Let’s explore the significance and emotional resonance of common colors, along with examples of renowned companies incorporating these colors into their branding strategies.

Red

Red is commonly linked with strength, dynamism, urgency, bravery, and enthusiasm. Its softer shades may evoke feelings of affection and coziness. Companies that aim to convey boldness or daring often choose red as their primary color.

Green

Green typically conveys a sense of nature, growth, renewal, and harmony. It often symbolizes freshness, vitality, balance, and even loyalty. Green is frequently chosen as the primary color by companies in industries related to health, the environment, sustainability, finance, and agriculture.

Blue

Blue symbolizes calmness, serenity, stability, trust, and reliability. It can evoke feelings of peace, tranquility, and clarity. Additionally, blue is often preferred by businesses aiming to convey trustworthiness, reliability, professionalism, and stability in their products or services. For this reason, companies such as banks, health care institutions, or insurance companies will use blue heavily in their branding.

Purple

Purple symbolizes mystery, spirituality, and individuality, evoking feelings of introspection and imagination. While it has historically symbolized wealth and luxury, it is now more commonly associated with creativity and collaboration.

Yellow

Yellow often conveys feelings of warmth, happiness, positivity, and optimism. It is associated with energy, vitality, and enlightenment. Many food and beverage companies heavily incorporate yellow combined with red into their branding, as this combination has been demonstrated to stimulate hunger.

Black

Black is frequently linked with sophistication, elegance, power, and authority. Additionally, black can symbolize timelessness, seriousness, and depth. Luxury companies often use black exclusively in their branding.

Choosing a Color Palette

Choosing a good color palette when designing a dashboard is important because it directly impacts user experience and comprehension of data. It also helps to create a cohesive and visually appealing design that engages users and makes the dashboard more intuitive to navigate.

Types of Color Palettes

Let's examine several frequently employed types of color palettes and explore the advantages and disadvantages of each. We will use this same primary color of blue for each one.

Monochromatic – Uses shades and tones of the same color.

Advantages – Providing a unified aesthetic, this approach simplifies the design process and enhances clarity within the dashboard. Additionally, it introduces elegance and sophistication, elevating the perceived quality of the dashboard.

Disadvantages – May lack contrast, making it difficult to highlight key information, and could potentially bore or disengage users due to limited visual variety. Additionally, it may limit expressiveness and present accessibility challenges for users with color vision deficiencies.

Analogous – Uses 3 colors located next to each other on the color wheel.

Advantages - By choosing colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, this method achieves a pleasing and balanced visual appearance. It ensures a unified and harmonious design, with room for slight variations that can improve the user experience. Depending on the location of the selected colors on the color wheel, the resulting palette can evoke either a warm or cool ambiance.

Disadvantages – Like monochromatic schemes, analogous color palettes may also lack enough contrast, making it difficult to distinguish between elements or highlight important information effectively.

Complementary – Colors across from each other on the color wheel.

Advantages - This choice gives a clear difference between colors, which is good for showing important information and making things interesting to look at. Also, complementary colors can make lively designs that grab users' attention and make things easier to read.

Disadvantages - Relying only on complementary colors might make the dashboard look messy or too busy if not balanced carefully.

Triadic – 3 colors that are equidistance apart on the color wheel.

Advantages – This option lets you balance colors well and gives you lots of contrast and variety. Designers can make visually interesting and dynamic layouts by using the natural vibrancy and balance of triadic color combinations.

Disadvantages - The primary disadvantage with using a triadic color palette on a dashboard is that it can look too busy or the colors might clash if they're not balanced right.

Tetradic – 2 sets of complementary pairs of colors.

Advantages - This choice provides various colors to choose from and enables creating noticeable differences and pleasing blends. It allows for making visually interesting designs while keeping everything organized and connected on the dashboard.

Disadvantages - Balancing four different colors in a tetradic scheme on the dashboard can be tricky. It's recommended to choose one color as the main one and use the others as supporting colors in the palette to keep the visual balance and harmony.

Creating Color Palette From an Image

An alternative is to utilize a free online tool like Canva, which enables the creation of a palette from an image. Below, you'll find an example of an image along with the corresponding color palette it can generate.

Other Dashboard Considerations

To conclude, let's touch on a few last considerations regarding dashboard colors. 

Dashboard Background

For a streamlined and distraction-free experience, it's often recommended to opt for white or black shades when selecting a dashboard background. Pure black and pure white backgrounds might be too intense. Consider using dark gray as a refined alternative to black or very light gray in place of pure white for a gentler ambiance.

Bold and Bright Colors Draws Attention

Color naturally attracts attention, making bold and bright hues ideal for KPIs and other callouts within visuals. For most visuals, opt for neutral or natural colors to maintain clarity and avoid overwhelming the viewer with excessive vibrancy. Striking a balance between bold and subdued colors ensures that important elements stand out while maintaining overall visual coherence.

Use Color Association

Using color associations on a dashboard helps users understand information better because it taps into what they already know. For instance, if you use red for apples and yellow for bananas in a fruit chart, people can quickly identify each fruit, making it easier to understand and interpret the data. When colors are used wisely, it makes charts and graphs easier to understand, helping people make decisions faster and understand the data better.

Use Color to Categorize

To sort data in a visual, use different colors for each category to make it clear and easy to distinguish.
Ensure that the selected colors exhibit sufficient clarity and avoid an excessive usage, as an abundance of colors may result in visual clutter, which can hinder user comprehension and engagement.

Color Accessibility

In North America, approximately 8% of males and 0.5% of females are estimated to have red-green color blindness. Therefore, using colors that stand out from each other and not relying only on color helps everyone understand the information better. When dashboards follow these rules, more people can understand the data and make better decisions.

In summary, understanding color theory is essential for creating effective BI dashboards that users can easily understand and use. By choosing colors carefully and considering how people perceive them, designers can create dashboards that help users interpret data and make better decisions.