Colour-related links
Links to resources about the accessible use of colour for maps, plots and diagrams.
- Summary of background and techniques for accessible use of colour for teaching materials.
Links to information
- Crameri, F., Shephard, G.E. and Heron, P.J. 2020. The misuse of colour in science communication. Nature Communications. 11(1), p.5444.
- Colour perception and presentation - a very good summary by a former member of SEE.
- How to choose colours for your data visualizations
- Simple tools for mastering color in scientific figures
- Best color palettes for scientific figures and data visualizations
- A series of blogs by Lisa Charlotte Muth:
- Which color scale to use when visualizing data
- When to use quantitative and when to use qualitative color scales
- When to use sequential and when to use diverging color scales
- When to use classed and when to use unclassed color scales
- How to choose an interpolation for your color scale - e.g. linear, quantile, Jenks etc.
- The rainbow colour map (repeatedly) considered harmful - blog by the author of the Nature paper above, Fabio Crameri
- Creating a colour style sheet - as in picking a limited range of colours to use in a variety of situations.
Colour blindness / Colour vision deficiency
- RGS Colour blind accessible mapping article
- Blog series on colour and colour blindness by Lisa Charlotte Muth
Tools to help with colour choices
- ColorBrewer - tool to choose colour schemes for cartography.
- Coblis colour blindness simulator.
- HCL Wizard Palette Creator - create a palette and check on example map with vision options.
- Colour resources - Includes a very long list of colour names.
- Scientific colour maps - downloadable colour maps and the theory behind them.
- Paul Tol’s Colour Schemes - implemented for use in R. Hex codes are given for each colour scheme.
- Adobe Color Accessibility Tools.
Colour contrast tools
- WCAG Contrast Checker - enables you to see how colours for fonts and backgrounds look together. Allows you to share a sample of the colours.
- Colour Contrast Checker - enables you to see how colours for fonts and backgrounds look together.
- Color Safe - creating colour palettes based on WCAG contrast guidelines.
- Accessible colour contrast - University of Sussex. Choose a palette, then check contrast.
- TPGi Colour Contrast Analyser - tool to install on Windows or Mac. Provides eye-dropper tool to enter colours and check contrast.