Recommend a Color Scale for a Flood-Risk Map With Evidence
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Recommend a color scale for a flood-risk map using synthetic study results. Lock hypotheses and report effect sizes. Get a verifiable certificate.
The scenario
Helvetan Risk sells flood and wildfire risk maps to reinsurance buyers who price catastrophe exposure, where a single misread of a high-risk zone can move millions in coverage decisions. The flagship map's color scale is the primary way these users translate a continuous risk value into a fast judgment, so the choice is a product decision, not a styling one.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Decide which of three candidate color scales Helvetan Risk should ship on its flood-risk map, and justify the choice with statistical evidence from a perceptual study rather than design preference.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Translate a contested design decision into a testable perceptual study with isolated variables and counterbalancing.
- Pre-register an analysis plan and explain why locking it before analysis protects the conclusion.
- Choose and report statistics appropriate to value-estimation, detection, and ordering tasks, including effect sizes.
- Write an evidence-backed recommendation that a non-specialist product reader can act on and defend.
- Reason about color-scale perception and accessibility constraints for a high-stakes data product.
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Perceptual Study
Apply perceptual study to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Color Scales
Apply color scales to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Experimental Design
Apply experimental design to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Pre Registration
Apply pre registration to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- User Research
Conduct interviews, surveys, and usability tests to uncover actionable user insights.
- Statistical Analysis
Apply statistical analysis to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Product Manager, Data Products
You practice turning a contested visual-design call into a pre-registered study and an evidence-backed recommendation, the core skill of a PM who owns a data-visualization product and must defend choices to engineering and leadership.
This challenge sharpens
- experimental-design
- pre-registration
- color-scales
User Researcher
You design a perceptual study, screen participants, and analyze results across task types, the day-to-day of a researcher who has to produce defensible findings from controlled studies rather than opinions.
This challenge sharpens
- perceptual-study
- user-research
- statistical-analysis
Data Visualization Specialist
You evaluate color encodings against how people read continuous risk and against accessibility constraints, bridging to a specialist role that defends visualization choices with perception evidence instead of taste.
This challenge sharpens
- color-scales
- perceptual-study
- experimental-design