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Tim
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The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.
  • If you want to publish it, often you need to provide the plots in black-and-white, or grayscale, so such plots can be risky. If you didn't know about such editorial policy, you could easily end up with an almost-uniformly gray rectangle instead of your beautiful, colorful plot.
  • Plot that looks good on your screen, does not have to look good on another monitor, with different settings.
  • There is limited number of colors that we can distinguish, so only a limited variability of data can be appropriately visualized. This is nicely illustrated on the picture from medium.com site:

enter image description here

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.
  • If you want to publish it, often you need to provide the plots in black-and-white, or grayscale, so such plots can be risky. If you didn't know about such editorial policy, you could easily end up with an almost-uniformly gray rectangle instead of your beautiful, colorful plot.

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.
  • If you want to publish it, often you need to provide the plots in black-and-white, or grayscale, so such plots can be risky. If you didn't know about such editorial policy, you could easily end up with an almost-uniformly gray rectangle instead of your beautiful, colorful plot.
  • Plot that looks good on your screen, does not have to look good on another monitor, with different settings.
  • There is limited number of colors that we can distinguish, so only a limited variability of data can be appropriately visualized. This is nicely illustrated on the picture from medium.com site:

enter image description here

added 260 characters in body
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Tim
  • 141.2k
  • 26
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  • 512

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.
  • If you want to publish it, often you need to provide the plots in black-and-white, or grayscale, so such plots can be risky. If you didn't know about such editorial policy, you could easily end up with an almost-uniformly gray rectangle instead of your beautiful, colorful plot.

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.
  • If you want to publish it, often you need to provide the plots in black-and-white, or grayscale, so such plots can be risky. If you didn't know about such editorial policy, you could easily end up with an almost-uniformly gray rectangle instead of your beautiful, colorful plot.
deleted 2 characters in body
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Nick Cox
  • 59.5k
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The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blindedblind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what pallettespalettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatterplotsscatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blinded people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what pallettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatterplots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.

The reasons that come to my mind:

  • Such plots are unreadable for color-blind people.
  • There are multiple different color palettes used for plotting -- it is not always instantly obvious what colors indicate "high" and what colors indicate "low" values. Moreover, my experience suggests it is very subjective what palettes are "intuitive" for different people.
  • If you plot multiple such plots on a single page they easily become totally unreadable, while with scatter plots at least some amount of readability is preserved (example below).

enter image description here

  • It is much more complicated to choose appropriate color palette and appropriate scaling for numbers-to-colors mapping (so not to end up with unreadable blob) -- often it needs multiple tries until finding the right scaling.
  • Choosing sizes of the bins is even more crucial than in simple histograms, because you can easily end up with colorful "white noise" for small bins, or just a few big rectangles that resemble rather abstract art, than say anything about your data.
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Tim
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