Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
161
Figure 6.34
Edit Color Coding
i suggest that you avoid using yellow (neutral) unless you have a good reason
to do so. the color coding is a visual alert that indicates additional action is needed.
if you apply yellow to indicate the data is neutral, you just drew attention to data that
does not need attention. At the same time, use green sparingly, unless you have verified
processes and actions aligned to positives.
red is the color i tend to use the most. But even when using only red, you should
be conservative. if half the rows in every report are color-coded red, the color loses its
meaning, and you might as well not use the functionality. reserve the color red to indi-
cate a warning.
imagine that your goal is a visit-to-sale conversion rate of 1 percent, and on all
reports—out of the box or custom built—anything below that level should be marked
red. You could wind up coloring a lot of reports red throughout. or suppose you
have traffic sources that drive interest and not sales. if they are to be color-coded by a
default value, you could end up with chart junk again. so be careful.
the same warning goes for applying color to all projects. You can only do so if
all projects are aligned or if a given metric means the same, no matter what you do. i
have never applied color coding to all projects.
