The Importance of Communication with Missing Data with Colours of Map for Decision-Making

Abstract

Missing data is a growing issue in data-driven studies. This study focuses on measuring the importance of communication with missing data and the perception of missing data with colours to find better solutions to potential problems in research with datasets with missing data. Understanding the significance of the interaction with missingness may help us to improve the visualisation of missing geospatial data. We have created a survey that includes some sentences, terms, graphs, maps, and colours we can encounter in daily life. However, all these expressions have some missingness in measuring participants' perceptions and decision-making mechanisms. One hundred-one respondents from different demographics, all from the UK, participated in the survey. It aims to improve the visualisation of missing geospatial data using the results of this research for future studies. But, in this paper, we specifically focus on the perception of representation of missingness with different colours on maps. We observed some differences depending on the gender, age, and education categories of the participants. In the gender-aged analysis of this study's results, a significant difference was observed, especially in the perception of a specific colour.