![]() A diverging scheme emphasizes the midpoint critical class with a light colour and then the two extremes with two diverging hues. Diverging color scales are often used to visualize negative and positive values, election results, or Likert scales (“strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree”).ĭiverging schemes are appropriately used where data has different extremes that might be best represented with different hues. Lisa Charlotte Muth, Which color scale to use when visualizing data (blog post)ĭiverging (also called bipolar or double-ended) color scales are the same as sequential color scales – but instead of just going from low to high, they have a bright middle value and then go darker to both ends of the scale in different hues. Let’s look at three definitions of a diverging color palette: ![]() ![]() This advice harkens to the title of this post–your legend is a chart and should be carefully labeled and annotated. When used correctly, the midpoint of a diverging color palette should be labeled to let the reader know from what value the ranges are diverging, especially when that midpoint is not obvious. I’m not sure why the diverging palette generates so many challenges, but it seems to be used incorrectly most often when it is replacing a correctly-used sequential color palette, which are palettes that utilize the same hue and range in lightness, for example, ranging from light blue for smaller numbers to dark blue for larger numbers. Color used poorly will obscure, muddle and confuse.” There is a wealth of information and guidance about choosing colors and color palettes (I really like Lisa Charlotte Muth’s writings in this area) but the one color palette that I see more often used incorrectly than others is the diverging color palette. As Maureen Stone once wrote, “olor used well can enhance and clarify a presentation. We all know that color is a very powerful part of the data communicator’s toolkit.
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