My traffic light dashboard chart almost got me in trouble at work

I made a report for my team on Tuesday using red, yellow, and green bars to show project status. My coworker, who's colorblind, quietly told me he couldn't tell the difference between the red and green sections. I felt awful! I spent the next hour adding tiny text labels and changing the green bars to a striped pattern. It was a simple fix, but I won't make that mistake again. Has anyone found a good pattern library for charts that works for everyone?

2 comments

2 Comments

brown.susan1d ago

My cousin had the same issue with those color coded maps at his office.

troycarter1d ago

That striped pattern fix was smart. I used to work with a guy named Dave who had the same red-green colorblindness. He pointed out that patterns plus a slight color shift work best, like using a dark green instead of bright green next to red. For dashboards, I now use icons like checkmarks, exclamation points, and X's right on the bars. It adds a clear second signal beyond just color or pattern.