Color: Make Your Viz Pop

Color can be the difference between a boring viz and an inspiring one. You can assign your own colors or choose a Tableau color set that has been pre-formulated to match and not clash. But before you go imitating Jackson Pollock, there are some things to consider:

• Use non-overlapping color scales with different views. Two different things shouldn’t be represented by the same color if they’re on the same dash board.
• Lots of different colors get confusing and blinding. Try to use no more than two color palettes.
• If your viz does not obviously label the color, then make sure to include a legend.
• Avoid adding color encodings with more than 12 distinct values.

The following viz uses color effectively. In this case you don't have to label the medal colors (it's obvious which is gold, silver, and bronze):