Updated: September 25, 2017

SAPUI5 Version 1.32

Chart – Color Palettes

Intro

This article explains what the three chart visualization color palettes are designed to do and how you can leverage their unique properties.

Palette Overview

For color names and HEX values, see palette colors – values and names.

Semantic Color Palette

Designed to communicate good, bad, critical and neutral values.

Sequential Color Palette

Designed to visualize high to low values using six shades for up to three measures.

Qualitative Color Palette

Designed to provide visual differentiation between data points using a specific sequence of colors.

Rules

Only use colors contained in the SAP Fiori chart palettes
You should only use colors from the SAP Fiori color palettes to ensure that we maintain visual design consistency across all charts used in all SAP Fiori applications.
Only use one palette per chart
Do not combine colors from different palettes in the same chart. Each palette has been carefully designed to serve a distinct purpose.
Ensure color names are referenced in the code – not HEX values!
Colors are defined by names in order to support our theming capabilities. This means that the HEX values of the colors may not be exactly the same in past, present and future SAP Fiori visual design themes. This flexibility is made possible by the fact that the color names will stay the same across all past, present and future SAP Fiori visual design themes. You can get the color names and corresponding HEX values from the article on color palettes – values and names.
Do not use color to distinguish between forecast, actual and target values
Use sematic patterns instead.

Default Colors

By default every chart type comes with built in colors which are automatically applied according to your dataset. Here are three examples:

1. When only one series is displayed, the first color from the qualitative palette is automatically applied to each item.

Column chart: One series

2. When a multiple series is displayed, more colors from the qualitative palette are automatically applied to each item in the predetermined sequence.

Column chart: Three series

3. Colors from the sequential palette are automatically applied to the heatmap.

Default colors in a heatmap

Changing the Colors

There are three ways to change the colors in charts:

By Category Item

In the example below, one category has been highlighted using the second color from the qualitative palette.

Column chart with a highlighted category

By Series

In the example below, the series use different shade of the same color because one series must be more visible than the other.

Two series column chart

Based on Value

In the example below, the data points are red if their value is below a certain threshold, green if their value is above another threshold, and orange if their value is between the two.

Column chart with encoded values

Developer Hint

You can customize chart colors using the property: plotArea.dataPointStyle.
When you customize the colors, you must define colors for all your data points.
If no color has been assigned to a particular data point, the chart component automatically assigns the color black to indicate that no color has been assigned.
If for some reason multiple colors are assigned to the same data point, the last assigned color will be applied.
You must manually define the labels that are associated with the colors in the legend as the chart components cannot automatically do this.

Qualitative Palette

The colors in the qualitative palette do not carry semantic meaning. The palette has been designed to provide visual differentiation between data points by virtue of the fact that each color is visually distinct.

Therefore, we recommend using the colors in the sequence illustrated above as opposed to using any colors simply because you prefer them.

If you have more than 11 categories, all you need to do is recycle the palette.

Below are two examples which illustrate how the qualitative color palette can be used.

qualitative palette

For color names and HEX values, see palette colors – values and names.

Highlight Category Items

By default all the categories will use the first color from the qualitative palette. However, you can use other colors from the qualitative palette if you want to highlight category items.

Using the qualitative palette to focus on a category item

Group Items by Color

You can use the qualitative palette to group items into categories. In this example, we use orange for Europe, blue for America, and green for Asia.

Using the qualitative palette to show a hierarchy

Semantic Palette

The semantic palette is designed to communicate good, bad, critical and neutral values using three universally recognized colors in six shades so you can visualize each semantic level.

Here are some ways you can use the palette:

Semantic palette

For color names and HEX values, see palette colors – values and names.

Illustrate the Top Three Values

This column chart uses the semantic palette to display sales revenue per month. The color green is used to highlight the top three months with the highest revenue.

Column chart: Top three values

Show Positive and Negative Series

These stacked bars represent the availability of materials. The available series is green, the inspection series is orange, and the blocked series is red.

Stacked bars: Good and bad values

Denote Good or Bad Values

Each data point has a color based on its value. Data points are now red if their value is below a certain threshold, green if their value is above another threshold, and orange if their value is between the two.

Column chart: Good and bad values

Visualize Different Levels

In this geomap, green is used to indicate states with good performance, and red is used to indicate states with bad performance. In this example the different shades express different levels of good and bad performance.

Geomap: Levels of performance

Default Color Shade Names

The default color shade names are:

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticNeutral
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticGood
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticCritical

Column chart: Level 1 of the semantic palette

Selecting the Correct Combination of Shades (Semantic Palette)

The semantic palette contains six shades of each color so you can express up to six levels of each semantic. Therefore, it’s important to select the correct combination of shades according to the number of levels you want to express. The table below shows you how to do this for bad – the same principle can be applied to good and critical.

Number of Levels

Shades to Use

Color Names

One Level

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad

Two Levels

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight2
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad

Three Levels

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight2
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadDark2

Four Levels

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight2
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight1
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadDark1

Five Levels

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight2
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight1
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadDark1
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadDark2

Six Levels

sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight3
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight2
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadLight1
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBad
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadDark1
sapUiChartPaletteSemanticBadDark2

Sequential Palette

The sequential color palette is designed to visualize high to low values for up to three measures.

Generally speaking, the lighter the shade, the lower the value. The darker the shade, the higher the value. Use gray for neutral elements in your visualizations.

Here some ways you can use the palette:

Sequential palette

For color names and HEX values, see palette colors – values and names.

Distinguish between Past and Present

These two series use different shades of the same color to distinguish between last year and the current year.

Column chart: Two series

Show Time Gradation

These stacked bars represent payable aging by country. The different gradations of brightness are used to represent different time periods.

Stacked bars: Time gradation

Visualize Different Levels

This bullet chart shows direct costs in a dark shade and indirect costs in a light shade.

Bullet chart: Different levels

This geomap contains two measures. Shades of blue are used to visualize high and low values for one measure while shades of orange are used to visualize high and low values for the other measure.

Geomap: Multiple levels in two groups

Ranked Values

In this bubble chart, the size of the bubbles represents future sales deals. The probability of converting these deals is expressed using different shades of blue.

Bubble chart: Ranked values

Selecting the Correct Combination of Shades (Sequential Palette)

The sequential palette contains six shades of each color so you can express up to six different values per measure. Therefore, it’s important to select the correct combination of shades according to the number of values you need to express. The table below shows how to do this for the blue category item color – the same principle can be applied to the other colors in the palette.

Number of Values

Shades to Use

Color Names

One Value

sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1

Two Values

sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light2
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1

Three Values

sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light2
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Dark2

Four Values

sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light2
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Dark1

Five Values

sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light2
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Dark1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Dark2

Six Values

sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light3
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light2
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Light1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Dark1
sapUiChartPaletteSequentialHue1Dark2

Resources

Want to dive deeper? Follow the links below to find out more about related controls, the SAPUI5 implementation, and the visual design.

Elements and Controls

Chart (guidelines)
Chart – Color Palette – Values and Names (guidelines)

Implementation

No links.