Finally came around on using patterns instead of just color for charts
I used to think adding patterns to graphs was overkill, like why bother if the colors look fine to me. Then last month I was presenting quarterly sales data at a team meeting and my coworker Dave, who's been colorblind his whole life, quietly told me he couldn't tell the red and green bars apart. I felt awful. He said he's used to it but I realized I'd been making stuff that literally excluded people for years without a second thought. So I reworked that same chart with diagonal lines on the red bars and dots on the green ones, and now Dave says he can actually follow along. What really convinced me is that the patterns don't even look cluttered when you keep them simple, just a few basic fills. Since then I've been adding them to all my data visuals at work, even the ones nobody complains about. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize you were making things harder for someone without knowing it?