How to select appropriate hue ranges for sequential color schemes on choropleth maps? A quantitative evaluation using map reading experiments

We propose map reading experiments to quantitatively evaluate the selection of hue ranges for sequential color schemes on choropleth maps. In these experiments, 60 sequential color schemes with six base hues and ten hue ranges were employed as experimental color schemes, and a total of 414 college students were invited to complete identification, comparison, and ranking tasks. Both controlled and real-map experiments were performed, each involving a web-based survey and an eye-tracking experiment. In the controlled experiments, the shapes of the map objects were relatively regular, and attribute data were randomized. In contrast, the shapes were complex in real-map experiments, and real data were employed. Our findings show that widely used color schemes with a hue range of 0º yield poor performance in all tasks; 15º hue ranges yield good performance in the comparison and ranking tasks but poor performance in the identification task. For large hue ranges of 120-360º, participants showed..., We recruited 246 college students to participate in the web survey and 23 college students to participate in the eye movement experiment. Through the experiment, we collected their visual data and arranged them according to different visual indicators. Then we process our data through qualitative and quantitative analysis to get the final result., These datasets are map cognitive data collected in experiments and processed through programs.
The README file provides relevant information.
 
Datasets included:
   

File

Description

Controlled experiments-web-based survey.xlsx
Web survey data for a controlled experiment, where the map data is randomly generated simulation data

Controlled experiments-eye-tracking.xlsx
Eye movement data from a controlled experiment, which added an eye tracker to record eye movement data

Real-map experiments-web-based survey.xlsx 
Real experiment web survey data, the experimental map data is real data

Real-map experiments-eye-tracking.xlsx 
Eye movement data from real experiments

Correlation and significance test results.xlsx 
Correlation significance parameters of various experimental data

 
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