Briefle words · Data & charts
Polarity
Also called direction of good
Whether a higher value of a metric is good or bad, which decides how its changes should be colored and worded.
Say it to an AI
A six-row cost table (five services plus total) with Sep, Oct and percent change, numbers right-aligned. Apply semantic color by polarity: this is spend, so increases are red and decreases green, with a 'lower is better' note so the coloring is unambiguous.
How an expert would brief the stronger version of “Cloud spend table”.
See it
Try it as a puzzle →Monthly cost report in the FinOps view of a cloud-spend tool used by an engineering team.
Why: For spend, down is good, which is why the subtitle says 'lower is better' and B colors the ▼ rows green.
Related words
Room 5 · Color & emphasis
Learn “Polarity” in a five-minute lesson