Data visualizations are essential for translating complex data into actionable insights, yet assumptions of universal design can overlook cultural differences. Through an analysis of Amazon bestsellers, a review of limited literature on cross-cultural data visualization, and an integration of research from fields such as visual communication, web design, marketing, psychology, professional communication, and user experience, this article highlights five visual design challenges for cross-cultural users: color, images, minimalism, visual hierarchy, and textual elements. While each challenge brings unique considerations shaped by cultural differences in perception, preferences, and interpretation, together they provide a structured framework for designing culturally-sensitive, user-centered charts and graphs. The article offers practical recommendations and questions for future studies for educators, researchers, and practitioners in business communication, aiming to better equip them to tackle these challenges and create visuals that honor diversity, equity, and inclusion. It bridges the gap between data visualization research and cross-cultural organizational communication by advocating for a user-centered approach that integrates both aesthetic appeal and clarity in global data visualization and urging more empirical research to inform best practices and teaching materials.
AbbottJ.GriffithsT.RegierT. (2016). Focal colors across languages are representative members of color categories. PNAS, 113(40), 11178–11183. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1513298113
2.
AdamsF.OsgoodC. (1973). A cross-cultural study of the affective meanings of color. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 4, 135–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/002202217300400201
3.
AkcayO.DalginM.BhatnagarS. (2011). Perception of color in product choice among college students: A cross-national analysis of USA, India, China and Turkey. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(21), 42–48.
4.
Al-RasheedA. (2015). An experimental study of gender and cultural differences in hue preference. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–5.
5.
AmareN.ManningA. (2013). Teaching form and color as emotion triggers. In BrumbergerE. R.NorthcutK. M. (Eds.), Designing texts: Teaching visual communication (pp. 181–195). Baywood Publishing.
6.
AykinN.MilewskiA. E. (2005). Practical issues and guidelines for international information display. In AykinN. (Ed.), Usability and internationalization of information technology (pp. 21–50). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
BarberW.BadreA. (1998). Culturability: The merging of culture and usability. Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Human Factors and the Web, 7(4), 1–10.
9.
BartramL.PatraA.StoneM. (2017). Affective color in visualization. CHI ‘17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1364–1374. Denver. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.302604
10.
BatemanS.MandrykR.GutwinC.GenestA.McDineD.BrooksC. (2010). Useful junk?: The effects of visual embellishment on comprehension and memorability of charts [Conference session]. CHI’10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2573–2582. Atlanta. https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753716
11.
BatovaT. (2024). Usability testing for data visualizations. Technical Note Number: BC-0301. Darden Business Publishing.
12.
BerinatoS. (2016). Good charts: The HBR guide to making smarter, more persuasive data visualizations. Harvard Business Review Press.
13.
BerlinB.KayP. (1969). Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. University of California Press.
14.
BodurogluA.ShahP.NisbettR. E. (2009). Cultural differences in allocation of attention in visual information processing. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40(3), 349–360.
15.
BonnardelV.BeniwalS.DubeyN.PandeM.BimlerD. (2017). Gender difference in color preference across cultures: An archetypal pattern modulated by a female cultural stereotype. Color Research and Application, 43(2), 209–223.
16.
BosleyD. (1999). Visual elements in cross-cultural communication: Recognition and comprehension as a function of cultural conventions. In LovittC. R.GoswamiD. (Eds.), Exploring the rhetoric of international professional communication (pp. 253–276). Baywood Publishing.
17.
BrescianiS.EpplerM.KaulA.YlinenR. (2011). The effectiveness of knowledge visualization for organizational communication in Europe and India [Conference session]. International Conference on Information Visualisation, pp. 365–370. London. https://doi.org/10.1109/IV.2011.29
18.
BrumbergerE. (2014) Toward a framework for intercultural visual communication: A critical review and call for research. Connexions: International Professional Communication Journal, 2(1), 91–116.
19.
BulfH.de HeviaM. D.Macchi CassiaV. (2016). Small on the left, large on the right: Numbers orient visual attention onto space in preverbal infants. Developmental Science, 19(3), 394–401. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12315
CairoA. (2012). The functional art: An introduction to information graphics and visualization (Kindle ed.). Pearson Education.
22.
CarpenterR. (2005). Designing for a Japanese high-context culture: Culture’s influence on the technical writer’s visual rhetoric [MA Thesis University of Central Florida, Orlando].
23.
Casado-ArandaL.Sánchez-FernándezJ.Ibáñez-ZapataH. (2023). Evaluating communication effectiveness through eye tracking: Benefits, state of the art, and unresolved questions. International Journal of Business Communication, 60(1), 24–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488419893746
24.
ChattopadhyayA.GornG. J.DarkeP. R. (2002). Roses are red and violets are blue- everywhere? Cultural differences and universals in color preference and choice among consumers and marketing managers (Working paper). University of British Columbia.
25.
ChaykaK. (2020). The longing for less: Living with minimalism. Bloomsbury Publishing.
26.
ChebatJ.MorrinM. (2007). Colors and cultures: Exploring the effects of mall décor on consumer perceptions. Journal of Business Research, 60, 189–196.
ChuaH.BolandJ.NisbettR. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 12629–12633
30.
ChuangJ.StoneM.HanrahanP. (2008). A probabilistic model of the categorical association between colors [Conference session]. Color and Imaging Conference, pp. 6–11. Portland, Oregon.
31.
CyrD.HeadM.LariosH. (2010). Colour appeal in website design within and across cultures: A multi-method evaluation. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 68(1–2), 1–21.
32.
D’AndradeR.EganM. (1974). The color of emotion. American Ethnologist, 1(1), 49–63.
33.
DavidoffJ.DaviesI.RobersonD. (1999). Colour categories in a stone-age tribe. Nature, 398, 203–204. https://doi.org/10.1038/18335
34.
de HeviaM.D.VeggiottiL.StreriA.BonnC. (2017). At birth, humans associate “few” with left and “many” with right. Current Biology, 27, 3879–3884. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.11.024
35.
DingD. (2003). The emergence of technical communication in China—Yi Jing (I Ching) the budding of a tradition. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 17(3), 319–345.
36.
DongY.LeeK. (2008). A cross-cultural comparative study of users’ perceptions of a webpage: With a focus on the cognitive styles of Chinese, Koreans and Americans. International Journal of Design, 2(2), 19–30.
37.
DuarteN. (2010). Resonate: Present visual stories that transform audiences. Wiley.
38.
DuarteN. (2019). DataStory: Explain data and inspire action through story. Ideapress Publishing.
39.
EkmanP. (2003). Emotions revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life. Times Books.
40.
EkmanP.FriesenW. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial expressions. Prentice Hall.
41.
ElliotA. (2019). A historically based review of empirical work on color and psychological functioning: Content, methods, and recommendations for future research. Review of General Psychology, 23(2), 177–200.
EvergreenS. (2016). Effective data visualization: The right chart for the right data. Sage Publications.
45.
FaiolaA.MateiS. (2005). Cultural cognitive style and web design: Beyond a behavioral inquiry into computer-mediated communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), 375–394. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.tb00318.x
46.
FewS. (2012). Show me the numbers: Designing tables and graphs to enlighten. Analytics Press.
FukuokaW.KojimaY.SpyridakisJ. (1999). Illustrations in user manuals: Preference and effectiveness with Japanese and American readers. Technical Communication, 46(2), 167–176.
GouldH. (2022). Modern minimalism and the magical Buddhist art of disposal. In BroxT.Williams-OerbergE. (Eds.), Buddhism and waste: The excess, discard, and afterlife of Buddhist, consumption (pp. 53–74). Bloomsbury Publishing.
51.
GrieveK. (1991). Traditional beliefs and colour perception. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 72(4), 1319–1323.
52.
GriffinR.GibbsW. (1993). International icon symbols: How well are these symbols understood? In BradenR. A.BacaJ. E.BeauchampD. G. (Eds.), Science and visual literacy. The International Visual Literacy Association, Inc.
53.
GrossmanR.WisenblitJ. (1999). What we know about consumers’ color choices. Journal of Marketing Practice, 5(3), 78–90.
54.
HedbergJ.BrownI. (2002) Understanding cross-cultural meaning through visual media. Educational media international, 39(1), 23–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523980210131123
55.
HofstedeG. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Sage.
56.
HoftN. (1995). International technical communication: How to export information about high technology. John Wiley & Sons.
57.
HortonW. (1993). The almost universal language: Graphics for international documents. Technical Communication, 40, 682–693.
58.
HortonW. (2005). Graphics: The not quite universal language. In AykinN. (Ed.), Usability and internationalization of information technology (pp. 157–187). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
59.
HupkaR.ZaleskiZ.OttoJ.ReidlL.TarabrinaN. (1997). The colors of anger, envy, fear, and jealousy. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 156–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022197282002
InbarO.TractinskyN.MeyerJ. (2007). Minimalism in information visualization: Attitudes towards maximizing the data-ink ratio [Conference session]. ECCE ’07: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics, New York. New York: ACM.
JacobsL.KeownC.WorthleyR.GhymnK. (1991), Cross-cultural colour comparisons: Global marketers beware. International Marketing Review, 8(3), 21–30.
64.
JamesonK. (2005a). Why GRUE? An interpoint–distance model analysis of composite color categories. Cross–Cultural Research, 39(2), 159–194.
65.
JamesonK. (2005b). Culture and cognition: What is universal about the representation of color experience?Journal of Cognition & Culture, 5(3/4), 293–347.
66.
JamesonK.D’AndradeR. G. (1997). It’s not really red, green, yellow, blue: An inquiry into perceptual color space. In HardinC. L.MaffiL. (Eds.), Color categories in thought and language (pp. 295–319). Cambridge University Press.
67.
JonesR.HagenM. (1980). A perspective on cross-cultural picture perception. In HagenM. A. (Ed.), The perception of pictures: Vol. 2. Dürer’s devices: Beyond the projective model of pictures (pp. 193–226). Academic Press.
68.
JungC. (1964). Man and his symbols. Aldus Books Limited.
69.
KayP.TeggerT. (2003). Resolving the question of color universals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(15), 9085–9089.
70.
KernbachS.EpplerM.BrescianiS. (2015). The use of visualization in the communication of business strategies: An experimental evaluation. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(2), 164–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488414525444
71.
KimK.LeeS. (2023). From organizational gossip to a corporate crisis: A network analysis of anonymous online communication on the blind application. International Journal of Business Communication, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294884231217084
72.
KostelnickC. (2011). Seeing difference: Teaching intercultural communication through visual rhetoric. In ThatcherB.St.AmantK. (Eds.), Teaching Intercultural Rhetoric and Technical Communication (pp. 31–48). Baywood.
73.
KreitlerH.KreitlerS. (1972). Psychology of the arts. Duke University Press.
74.
LingY.HurlbertA. (2007). A new model for color preference: Universality and individuality [Conference session]. Proceeding of the 15th Color Imaging Conference, Alburquerque, pp. 8–11. Albuquerque, NM: Society for Imaging Science and Technology.
75.
LingY.XiongD.CunninghamL.HurlbertA. (2006). A cross-cultural investigation of colour preference development. Perception, 35, 90–90.
76.
LiuW.YangA.ShinJ.LiY.SunJ.QuY.ZhenL.Min KimH.DongC. (2023). One Earth, one humanity versus the virus: Examining the global COVID-19 social partnership communication networks on social media. International Journal of Business Communication, 60(2), 587–610. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294884221114393
77.
LombardC. (1992). Let’s get visual: Revelations after six days with Japanese customers. Technical Communication, 39(4), 689–691.
78.
LucyJ. (1997). The ‘linguistics’ of color. In HardinC. L.MaffiL. (Eds.), Color categories in thought and language (pp. 320–346). Cambridge University Press.
79.
LuscherM.ScottI. (1969). The Luscher color test. Random House.
80.
MackiewiczJ. (2007). Perceptions of clarity and attractiveness in PowerPoint graph slides. Technical Communication, 54, 145–156.
81.
MaddenT.HewettK.RothM. (2000). Managing images in different cultures: A cross-national study of color meanings and preferences. Journal of International Marketing, 8(4), 90–107.
MaitraK.GoswamiD. (1995). Responses of American readers to visual aspects of a mid-sized Japanese company’s annual report: A case study. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 38(4), 197–203. https://doi.org/10.1109/47.475591
84.
ManganJ. (1978). Cultural conventions of pictorial representation: Iconic literacy and education. Educational Communication and Technology—A Journal of Theory, Research, and Development, 26, 245–267.
85.
MarcusA.GouldE. (2000) Cultural dimensions and global web user-interface design. ACM Interactions, 7, 32–46.
86.
MasudaT.NisbettR. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922–934.
87.
MasudaT.NisbettR. E. (2006). Culture and change blindness. Cognitive Science, 30(2), 1–19.
McCandlessD. (2009b). The visual miscellaneum: A colorful guide to the world’s most consequential trivia. Harper.
90.
McCoolM. (2008). Can color transcend culture? [Conference session]. IEEE International Professional Communication Conference, pp. 1–8. Montreal, QC.
91.
MelisA.Simone AresuS. (2022). Analyst following, country’s financial development, and the selective use of graphical information in corporate annual reports. International Journal of Business Communication, 59(4), 459–484. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488419829886
92.
MessarisP. (1993). Analog, not digital: Roots of visual literacy and visual intelligence. In BeauchampO. G.BradenR. A.BacaL. C. (Eds.), Visual literacy in the digital age. The International Visual Literacy Association. Inc.
MohrC.JonauskaiteD.Dan-GlauserE. S.UuskülaM.DaelN. (2018).Chapter 11. Unifying research on colour and emotion: Time for a cross-cultural survey on emotion associations with colour terms. In MacDonaldL. W.BiggamC. P.ParameiG. V (Eds.), Progress in colour studies: Cognition, language, and beyond (pp. 209–222). John Benjamin’s Publishing Company.
95.
MooreC.RomneyK.HsiaT. (2002). Cultural, gender, and individual differences in perceptual and semantic structures of basic colors in Chinese and English. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2(1), 1–28.
96.
NisbettR.PengK.ChoiI.NorenzayanA. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310.
97.
Nussbaumer KnaflicC. (2015). Storytelling with data: A data visualization guide for business professionals. Wiley.
98.
OgdenJ.AkcayO.SableP. (2010). Color and its impact on consumer choice. Retail Education Today, 30(3), 4–6.
99.
OuL. C.YuanY.SatoT.LeeW. Y.SzabóF.SueeprasanS.HuertasR. (2018). Universal models of colour emotion and colour harmony. Color Research and Application, 43, 736–748. https://doi.org/10.1002/col.22243
100.
PalmerS.SchlossK.GuoT.WungV.PengK. (2015). Symbolic effects on color preferences in China and the US. Journal of Vision, 15(12), 1312. https://doi.org/10.1167/15.12.1312
101.
PenroseJ. (2008). Annual report graphic use: A review of the literature. Journal of Business Communication, 45(2), 158–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021943607313990
102.
QiuyeW. (2000). A cross-cultural comparison of the use of graphics in scientific and technical communication. Technical Communication, 47(4), 553–560.
103.
RanasingheC.KrukarJ.KrayC. (2018). Visualizing location uncertainty on mobile devices: Cross-cultural differences in perceptions and preferences. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 2(1), 1–22.
104.
ReddyT.BennettC. (1985). Cultural differences in color preferences. Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting, 29(6), 590–593.
105.
RegierT.KayP.CookR. S. (2005). Focal colors are universal after all. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(23), 8386–8391.
106.
RegierT.KayP.KhetarpalN. (2007). Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(4), 1436–1441.
107.
RobersonD.DavidoffJ.DaviesI.ShapiroL. (2005). Color categories: Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology, 50(4), 378–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2004.10.001
108.
RobersonD.DaviesI.DavidoffJ. (2000). Color categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129(3), 369–398. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.129.3.369
109.
SandhuA. (2022). Less is more: The paradox of minimalism in contemporary Indian fashion. International Journal of Fashion Studies, 9, 339–359. https://doi.org/10.1386/infs_00075_1
110.
SaundersB.van BrakelJ. (1997). Are there nontrivial constraints on colour categorization?Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20(2), 167–179.
111.
SchwabishJ. (2021). Better data visualizations: A guide for scholars, researchers, and wonks. Columbia University Press.
112.
SilverN. (1988). Sex and racial differences in color and number preferences. Perceptions and Motor Skills, 66, 295–299.
113.
SimonW. (1971). Number and color responses of some college students: Preliminary evidence for a blue seven phenomenon. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 33(3), 373–374.
114.
SpeckerE.LederH.RosenbergR.HegelmaierL. M.BrinkmannH.MikuniJ.KawabataH. (2018). The universal and automatic association between brightness and positivity. Acta Psychologica, 186, 47–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.04.007
115.
StewartE.BennettM. (1991). American cultural patterns: A cross-cultural perspective. Intercultural Press, Inc.
116.
TufteE. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information. Graphics Press.
117.
TverskyB.KugelmassS.WinterA. (1991). Cross-cultural and developmental trends in graphic productions. Cognitive Psychology, 23(4), 515–557.
118.
UseemM.UseemJ.AselP. (2003). Upward bound: Nine original accounts of how business leaders reached their summits. Crown Business.
119.
UuskülaM.EessaluM. (2018). Glossy black is not actually ‘black’: Evidence from psycholinguistic colour-naming studies in 14 European languages. Color Culture and Science Journal, 9, 39–44. https://doi.org/10.23738/ccsj.i92018.04
120.
WangT.ShuS.MoL. (2014). Blue or red? The effects of colour on the emotions of Chinese people. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 17, 152–158. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12050
WangY.WangD. (2009). Cultural contexts in technical communication: A study of Chinese and German automobile literature. Technical Communication56(1), 39–50.
123.
WareC. (2020). Information visualization: Perception for design (4th ed.). Morgan Kaufmann.
124.
WeiX.FangY. (2020). Research on the composition of regional logos and cultural symbols based on minimalism [Conference session]. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Arts, Design and Contemporary Education. Moscow, Russia. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210106.120
125.
WexlerS.ShafferJ.CotgreaveA. (2017). The big book of dashboards: Visualizing your data using real-world business scenarios. Wiley.
126.
WiegersmaS.Van der ElstG. (1988). ‘Blue phenomenon’: Spontaneity or preference. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 66(2), 308–310.
127.
WürtzE. (2006). A cross-cultural analysis of websites from high-context cultures and low-context cultures. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), 274–299. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00013.x
128.
XiaoX. (2018). Cultural differences and user instructions: Will minimalist manuals work for Chinese users? [M.Sc. Thesis].
129.
YakuraE. (2002). Charting time: Timelines as temporal boundary objects. Academy of Management Journal, 45(5), 956–970.
130.
YatesJ. (1985). Graphs as a managerial tool: A case study of Du Pont’s use of graphs in the early twentieth century. The Journal of Business Communication, 22(1), 5–33.
131.
YauN. (2011). Visualize this: The FlowingData guide to design, visualization, and statistics. Wiley.
132.
YokosawaK.SchlossK.AsanoM.PalmerS. (2015). Ecological effects in cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Japanese color preferences. Cognitive Science, 40, 1590–1616. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12291
133.
YokosawaK.YanoN.SchlossK.Prado-LeònL.PalmerS. (2010). Cross-cultural studies of color preferences: US, Japan, and Mexico. Journal of Vision, 10, 408. https://doi.org/10.1167/10.7.408
