[mat-wg] color blindness and color meaning association

I never considered colour-blindness before, so thanks for those links, Job.

On Wed, 24 May 2017, 11:36 Emile Aben, <emile.aben at ripe.net> wrote:

> Hi Job,
>
> Thanks for your detailed feedback. We'll take that into account in
> further developments around the tool. Remember this is a prototype (code
> is available at: https://github.com/emileaben/ixp-country-jedi ). If you
> have a colour scheme that you think would work better for all cases, you
> can submit a pull request there. Or we can work together on improving
> this in a mini-code-sprint sometime soon?
>
> Couloring IXPs as green was done because this tool was initially
> developed in an IXP context; it was presented at EURO-IX and Netnod
> meetings, and my understanding was that the IXPs would favour paths
> going over the IXP. I think you are correct in pointing out that this is
> not necessarily the right thing to do in all contexts.
>
> There is already work underway to look at direct vs. indirect
> interconnections in the tool. Our research intern Petros Gkigkis is
> going to show a sneak preview of that at the upcoming GRNOG meeting (
> https://www.grnog.gr/?lang=en ) this Friday.
>
> And of course there will be RIPE Labs articles about further
> developments like this. So keep an eye out at https://labs.ripe.net :)
>
> kind regards,
> Emile Aben
> RIPE NCC
>
>
> On 24/05/17 15:15, Job Snijders wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > TL;DR - red/green color palettes should be avoided in data
> >         visualiations, please pick something else!
> >
> > Yesterday I saw Christian Teuschel present on the "Jedi" tool at SINOG,
> > and two things stood out:
> >
> >     A) the data visualisations do not attempt to accomodate for people
> >        who are color blind, in fact, the worst colors possible were
> >        picked
> >
> >     B) by using using common traffic light colors (green, orange, red)
> >        an implicit judgement is made on the meaning of the data (traffic
> >        crossing an internet exchange was seemingly favored over private
> >        peering)
> >
> > To point (A) - red–green color blindness which affect a substantial
> > portion of the human population. In the US, about 7 percent of the male
> > population (or about 10.5 million men) and 0.4 percent of the female
> > population either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and
> > green differently from how others do (Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
> > 2006). There are quite some pointers as to how to design color palettes
> > which accomodate everyone.
> >
> >
> http://www.somersault1824.com/tips-for-designing-scientific-figures-for-color-blind-readers/
> >     http://blog.usabilla.com/how-to-design-for-color-blindness/
> >
> > B) As I understand the "Jedi" tool, it shows matrixes of what traffic
> > between atlas probes leaves the country, and what traffic remains within
> > the country - offering insight into a reflection on a country's internal
> > routing arrangements. I'm a big fan of keeping local traffic local, so
> > the tool certainly has value.
> >
> > However, the tool displays traffic which passes over an IXP within the
> > country as green, and traffic that says within the country but didn't
> > cross an IXP as "orange". Since the majority of internet traffic flows
> > over direct, private interconnections between ASNs, signifying that
> > traffic as "orange", has the potential to be taken as a "wrong", rather
> > then as an arbitrary datapoint. I suggest that the Jedi tool either uses
> > the same color for ixp and non-ixp "within country" traffic (and perhaps
> > a small icon is used to signify the additional data attribute that an
> > IXP was observed in the traceroute), or that the jedi tool uses entirely
> > arbitrary colors that have no inherent meaning like the traffic light
> > colors do.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > Job
> >
>
>
>
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