# Rainbows Revisited: Modeling Effective Colormap Design for Graphical Inference

Canonical URL: https://colorcurio.us/library/rainbows-revisited
Source type: Library entry
Resource URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030439
Added: 2026-09-27

## Summary

Colormaps that pass through more nameable colors, rainbows included, made people more accurate at inference.

The experiments found no sign that color categories created false features — a useful counterweight to the anti-rainbow canon.

- Resource: [Rainbows Revisited: Modeling Effective Colormap Design for Graphical Inference](https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030439)
- By: Khairi Reda & Danielle Albers Szafir
- Published: 2020
- Kind: writing (article)
- Level: advanced
- Tags: color-scales, perception, data-viz, scientist, research

## In collections

- [Perceptual Colormaps](https://colorcurio.us/library/collections/perceptual-colormaps)

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