Contrast: One of the 3Cs for Better Charts

Summary: Direct your viewer’s attention to your point. Use color, callouts, and titles to communicate your key takeaway.

This article is the second in a three-part series.

Don’t just throw your UX data into a chart and share it with stakeholders, hoping they’ll see the point you’re trying to make. Amanda Cox, data editor at the New York Times, once said:

“ The annotation layer is the most important thing we do […] Having someone tell you, ‘This is what you should pay attention to,’ is a very useful and helpful idea. Tell me what I should look at. […] Otherwise, you put too much of the burden on someone and say, ‘You go figure it out.’ […] We don’t want to make scavenger hunts .”