[matplotlib-devel] Colormap survey results

[Nathaniel S. <nj...@po...>]

Greetings, matplotliberators!

I've counted up the various "votes" people made regarding the
different colormap options at
  https://bids.github.io/colormap
including the ones in the matplotlib-devel and -users threads and
elsewhere (private email, twitter), etc.

There were two phases -- some people saw A/B/C, and some saw A/B/C/D,
so I'll separate the votes into those two groups. It's a bit
complicated to break down, also, because people expressed preferences
with different degrees of specificity ("I like X" vs total order vs
partial order...).

----------- Round 1 votes -----------

For those comparing A/B/C, the number of people with different preferences were:

First choice A: 6 votes
  Of which:
     A > C > B got 1 vote
     A > B > C got 2 votes

First choice B: 8 votes
  Of which:
    B > A > C got 3 votes
    B > C > A got 1 vote

First choice C: 7 votes
  Of which:
    C > A > B got 1 vote
    C > B > A got 4 votes

----------- end of round 1 votes -----------

Then we added option D.

----------- Round 2 votes -----------

For those comparing A/B/C/D, the number of people with different
preferences were:

First choice A: 0 votes

First choice B: 2 votes
  Of which:
      B > A > C/D got 1 vote

First choice C: 1 votes
  Of which:
      C > D > A/B got 1 vote

First choice D: 12 votes
  Of which:
      D > C > A/B got 1 vote
      D > A > C > B got 1 vote

----------- end of round 2 votes -----------

It seems that voting works better in some cases than others.

So the next question is where we go from here. We need to pick a color
for this bikeshed at some point. One theory is that the next step is
to propose a bunch of variations on option D and have another round of
voting etc. Another is that we should just call it a day and decide
now :-).

For reference, here's option D:
    https://bids.github.io/colormap/images/screenshots/option_d.png

And here are the other greenish colormaps that have been mentioned:
    https://bids.github.io/colormap/images/screenshots/fake_parula.png
    https://bids.github.io/colormap/images/screenshots/erics-RdBuGnYl_r.png
    https://bids.github.io/colormap/images/screenshots/erics-RdBuGnYl_r_v2.png
    https://bids.github.io/colormap/images/screenshots/joes-blu_grn_pnk2.png

My personal feeling is that all these alternatives are basically
reasonable colormaps, but compared to option D I find them kinda ugly,
and, more importantly, substantially worse for colorblind users, which
IMO should outweigh a marginal/debateable improvement for the rest of
us.

So if it were up to me I'd be inclined to declare we've reached the
point of diminishing returns and go with D, but I don't know how
everyone else is feeling. Shall we just go for it?

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org