How can I apply the principles of the “weather map” to make my own information easier for audiences to understand?
Here are three quick tips:
- Choose appropriate colors. Culturally we associate certain colors with various meanings. For example, reds and oranges are associated with warm, while blues and purples are associated with cool. The weather map does not contradict this understanding, but uses them to make it easier to understand the visual. Choosing the right colors will make your information easier to understand. This does not require you to have a broad understanding of color meaning; rather just stop to think about what colors you would find easier to understand. For instance, would you think of green or red to be more likely associated with a negative number?
- Be consistent. Most weather stations don’t decide to modify their Doppler radar color for rain. Instead they stick with green. Green equals rain. Easy to understand. You can apply this principle to your graphics as well by being consistent with the symbols, icons, and colors you use across multiple figures. It will make it easier for your audience to quickly process the information. They won’t have to take the time to relearn what items mean in each graphic.
- Consider detail and scale. If you want to know what the weather will be like for your outdoor wedding, you want specific information. You would like to know specifically what the temperatures will be like at certain times of the day and the likelihood of rain for a given area. On the other hand, if you have two connecting flights on an upcoming trip, you may just be interested in knowing if any major storms will be coming across the country. In both situations you are interested in knowing what the weather will be like, but a very different graphic would be helpful to answering these questions. Therefore (here’s my broken record tip for all graphics), always consider your audience when making any choices about the level of detail or scale needed to produce the best information graphic.
-Elissa Schloesser