# What Color Scheme is More Effective in Assisting Readers to Locate Information in a Color-Coded Article?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06494 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06494/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Aug 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [ChatGPT Outperforms Crowd-Workers for Text-Annotation Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15056/) (2023)
- [ChatGPT-4 Outperforms Experts and Crowd Workers in Annotating Political Twitter Messages with Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06588/) (2023)
- [If in a Crowdsourced Data Annotation Pipeline, a GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16795/) (2024)
- [InfoColorizer: Interactive Recommendation of Color Palettes for Infographics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02041/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [How do Visual Attributes Influence Web Agents? A Comprehensive Evaluation of User Interface Design Factors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21961/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Color coding, a technique assigning specific colors to cluster information types, has proven advantages in aiding human cognitive activities, especially reading and comprehension. The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) has streamlined document coding, enabling simple automatic text labeling with various schemes. This has the potential to make color-coding more accessible and benefit more users. However, the impact of color choice on information seeking is understudied. We conducted a user study assessing various color schemes' effectiveness in LLM-coded text documents, standardizing contrast ratios to approximately 5.55:1 across schemes. Participants performed timed information-seeking tasks in color-coded scholarly abstracts. Results showed non-analogous and yellow-inclusive color schemes improved performance, with the latter also being more preferred by participants. These findings can inform better color scheme choices for text annotation. As LLMs advance document coding, we advocate for more research focusing on the "color" aspect of color-coding techniques.