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If you are interested in color, explore my other color tools, Brewer palettes resources, color blindness palettes and math and an exhausting list of 10,000 color names for all those times you couldn't distinguish between tan hide, sea buckthorn, orange peel, west side, sunshade, california and pizzaz.

Designing for Color blindness

Color choices and transformations for deuteranopia and other afflictions

Here, I help you understand color blindness and describe a process by which you can make good color choices when designing for accessibility.

The opposite of color blindness is seeing all the colors and I can help you find 1,000 (or more) maximally distinct colors.

You can also delve into the mathematics behind the color blindness simulations and learn about copunctal points (the invisible color!) and lines of confusion.

Color palettes for color blindness

In this section, I cover how to make good color choices when considering audiences with color blindness.

With the exception of the 8-color palette, all palettes have been created using a process (read below) that tries to maintain perceptual luminance uniformity in color-blind space.

1 · Conservative 8-color palette for colorbliness

This 8-color palette is adapted from Nature Method's Points of View: Color blindness by Bang Wong. Note that in that original source the RGB values listed in the table did not exactly correspond to the RGB swatches—probably an RGB vs CMYK conversion mixup.

This palette is suitable for categorical color encoding—the colors do not, as a whole, have a natural order and none is substantially more salient than another.

You can download these colors as plain text list of HEX and RGB values.

An 8-color palette for color blindness. / Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
An 8-color palette for color blindness, adapted from Wong, B. (2011) Nature Methods 8:441. (PDF, plain text)

For more tips about designing with color blindness in mind, see Color Universal Design (CUD) — How to make figures and presentations that are friendly to people with color blindess.

2 · Using color equivalencies

To people with color blindness, some colors appear the same. This equivalence can be used to identify colors that are distinct to those with normal as well as to those with color blindness.

For a given RGB color we can simulate how it would appear to someone with color blindess and identify groups of RGB colors that appear indistinguishable in color blindness.

Color equivalencies in color blindness for protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia. / Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Many colors appear the same to people with color blindness. This chart shows the colors that are identical (rows) to those with protanopia, deuteranopia (most common) and tritanopia

These equivalencies can be used to construct color palettes—lists of colors that are distinguishable to deuteranopes and those with normal vision.

Since deuteranopia is the most common, this is the condition that I use for color selection.

The exact luminance (perceived brightness) of the simulated color varies depending on the color blindness algorithm. Each row in the squares above should look identical using any color blindness simulation (e.g. Color Oracle, Photoshop, etc) but brightness of the rows may be slightly different than shown here.

3 · 12-color palette for colorbliness

This palette maps four colors onto each of the two color dimensions in deuteranopes and four onto greyscale. This palette is very useful for designing transit and subway maps.

Color names are playful selections from my list of 10,000 color names.

You can download these colors as plain text list of HEX and RGB values.

A 12-color palette for color blindness. / Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
A 12 color palette for color blindness that maps onto each of the color dimensions in deuteranopes. Within each set of four, colors also have reasonably similar greyscale tones. Inset swatches show color alternatives that are indistinguishable from the main swatch for deuternopes. (PDF, plain text)

4 · 15-color palette for colorbliness

You can download these colors as plain text list of HEX and RGB values.

A 15-color palette for color blindness. / Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
A 15-color palette for color blindness. (PDF, plain text)

5 · 24-color palette for colorbliness

Even more color choices for color blindess, including colors that map onto greys. For these, I don't have RGB/HEX values handy.

You can download these colors as plain text list of HEX and RGB values.

15-color palettes for color blindness / Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
15-color palettes designed for each of the three types of color blindness: deuteranopia, protanopia and tritanopia. Palettes are shown as they appear to someone with normal vision as well as to someone affected with each of the three types of color blindness. Each palette contains three groups of swatches, matching to two of the color channels and greys. Within each group colors in the same row map onto the same color. (PDF)

6 · The last word on color palettes for colorbliness

You can create your own color palettes using the figure below.

For a given color blindness type (e.g. deuteranopia) and channel (e.g. blue), the rows represent reasonably uniform steps in LCH luminance of the simulated color and a rich (high chroma) simulation at that luminance.

The last word on color palettes for color blidness. / Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Color ramps of 16–19 colors for each color channel for each color blidness type. Color ramps show RGB colors and their color blindness simulation grouped by channels (e.g. greys, blues, yellow). Within a channel, colors are sorted in increasing and roughly equal steps of LCH luminance of the simulated color. At a given luminance, the RGB color whose simulation has the highest chroma is used. (PDF)
news + thoughts

Nasa to send our human genome discs to the Moon

Sat 23-03-2024

We'd like to say a ‘cosmic hello’: mathematics, culture, palaeontology, art and science, and ... human genomes.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
SANCTUARY PROJECT | A cosmic hello of art, science, and genomes. (details)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
SANCTUARY PROJECT | Benoit Faiveley, founder of the Sanctuary project gives the Sanctuary disc a visual check at CEA LeQ Grenoble (image: Vincent Thomas). (details)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
SANCTUARY PROJECT | Sanctuary team examines the Life disc at INRIA Paris Saclay (image: Benedict Redgrove) (details)

Comparing classifier performance with baselines

Sat 23-03-2024

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. —George Orwell

This month, we will illustrate the importance of establishing a baseline performance level.

Baselines are typically generated independently for each dataset using very simple models. Their role is to set the minimum level of acceptable performance and help with comparing relative improvements in performance of other models.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Comparing classifier performance with baselines. (read)

Unfortunately, baselines are often overlooked and, in the presence of a class imbalance5, must be established with care.

Megahed, F.M, Chen, Y-J., Jones-Farmer, A., Rigdon, S.E., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2024) Points of significance: Comparing classifier performance with baselines. Nat. Methods 20.

Happy 2024 π Day—
sunflowers ho!

Sat 09-03-2024

Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and dig into the digit garden. Let's grow something.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
2024 π DAY | A garden of 1,000 digits of π. (details)

How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything

Thu 18-01-2024

Huge empty areas of the universe called voids could help solve the greatest mysteries in the cosmos.

My graphic accompanying How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything in the January 2024 issue of Scientific American depicts the entire Universe in a two-page spread — full of nothing.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything. Text by Michael Lemonick (editor), art direction by Jen Christiansen (Senior Graphics Editor), source: SDSS

The graphic uses the latest data from SDSS 12 and is an update to my Superclusters and Voids poster.

Michael Lemonick (editor) explains on the graphic:

“Regions of relatively empty space called cosmic voids are everywhere in the universe, and scientists believe studying their size, shape and spread across the cosmos could help them understand dark matter, dark energy and other big mysteries.

To use voids in this way, astronomers must map these regions in detail—a project that is just beginning.

Shown here are voids discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), along with a selection of 16 previously named voids. Scientists expect voids to be evenly distributed throughout space—the lack of voids in some regions on the globe simply reflects SDSS’s sky coverage.”

voids

Sofia Contarini, Alice Pisani, Nico Hamaus, Federico Marulli Lauro Moscardini & Marco Baldi (2023) Cosmological Constraints from the BOSS DR12 Void Size Function Astrophysical Journal 953:46.

Nico Hamaus, Alice Pisani, Jin-Ah Choi, Guilhem Lavaux, Benjamin D. Wandelt & Jochen Weller (2020) Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2020:023.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12

constellation figures

Alan MacRobert (Sky & Telescope), Paulina Rowicka/Martin Krzywinski (revisions & Microscopium)

stars

Hoffleit & Warren Jr. (1991) The Bright Star Catalog, 5th Revised Edition (Preliminary Version).

cosmology

H0 = 67.4 km/(Mpc·s), Ωm = 0.315, Ωv = 0.685. Planck collaboration Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters (2018).

Error in predictor variables

Tue 02-01-2024

It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision that the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible. —Aristotle

In regression, the predictors are (typically) assumed to have known values that are measured without error.

Practically, however, predictors are often measured with error. This has a profound (but predictable) effect on the estimates of relationships among variables – the so-called “error in variables” problem.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Error in predictor variables. (read)

Error in measuring the predictors is often ignored. In this column, we discuss when ignoring this error is harmless and when it can lead to large bias that can leads us to miss important effects.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2024) Points of significance: Error in predictor variables. Nat. Methods 20.

Background reading

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2015) Points of significance: Simple linear regression. Nat. Methods 12:999–1000.

Lever, J., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2016) Points of significance: Logistic regression. Nat. Methods 13:541–542 (2016).

Das, K., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Quantile regression. Nat. Methods 16:451–452.

Martin Krzywinski | contact | Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences CentreBC Cancer Research CenterBC CancerPHSA
Google whack “vicissitudinal corporealization”
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