If you have multiple metrics to evaluate goodness of a design, one would normally need to decide which metrics they care the most about in order to find the "best" design.

The Pareto frontier tells you which designs are the best in at least one of your metrics (non-dominated by another design). For example if you're selecting a car and you care about both speed and mpg, a Formula 1 car and a Prius might lie on the Pareto frontier, but a Model T Ford would not.

The set of models that are pareto-optimal, IE for some set of variables, no other model strictly dominates them = no other model is better than them on every variable.

So like, on a cost-intelligence graph, the cheapest and most intelligent models are pareto optimal. Then in-between those if you have

- cost $3 intelligence 6

- cost $1 intelligence 5

- cost $2 intelligence 4

The 1st and 2nd are pareto optimal, the 3rd is not, because it's dominated by the 2nd (2nd is cheaper AND more intelligent at the same time)

try PARETO