This paper presents a comprehensive investigation of the factors that influence visual comparison in colored node-link diagrams. We conducted a user study in which participants were asked to identify differences in pairs of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) under time constraints. Previous studies focused on the perception of differences in node-link diagrams without coloring. Our results show that the individual coloring of nodes and edges significantly affects the detection of differences. We were able to confirm previous results, such as the influence of graph density, and also found that uniform coloring in certain areas of the graphs plays an important role in finding differences. Consequently, the results of this study hold potential for developing better comparative visualizations for diverse applications, such as finance or biology.

Cite this paper

Pelchmann, L. and Bremm, S. and Ebell, K. and von Landesberger, T. (2023). Explorative Study on Semantically Resonant Colors for Combinations of Categories with Application to Meteorological Data. The Eurographics Association. doi: 10.2312/evp.20231061.

BibTeX:

@inproceedings {10.2312:evp.20231061,
booktitle = {EuroVis 2023 - Posters},
editor = {Gillmann, Christina and Krone, Michael and Lenti, Simone},
title = {{Explorative Study on Semantically Resonant Colors for Combinations of Categories with Application to Meteorological Data}},
author = {Pelchmann, Laura and Bremm, Sebastian and Ebell, Kerstin and Landesberger, Tatiana von},
year = {2023},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-220-2},
DOI = {10.2312/evp.20231061}
}