(Un)Conventional Wisdom

I recently came across an example diagram of a social graph. Its intent was to show the relationship that a person has with others in their life both directly and indirectly.

It was a series of circles and interconnecting lines. The circles got smaller as the relationships became more distant. Much in keeping with the current style of such diagrams. Then they got creative.

The circles had coloured backgrounds. In the legend for the diagram it said “Orange is for Male “ and “Purple for Female”. Nice colours, but for most of us through our entire lives the colours Blue and Pink have been used metaphorically for males and females respectively. As it turns out there is no consensus as to why these colours were chosen but they have become de facto standards.

It’s hard to say why the designer of this graph did not adhere to such a well established convention. Changing it required an explanation as to the use of the colours. While there is no guarantee that the Blue/Pink colour scheme would have been understood by all, it’s a safe bet that for most of us it would have been intuitive. So why not use it. Changing the metaphor added no value to the diagram, in fact, it may have reduced its effectiveness.

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