[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Author Index (this month)][Thread Index (this month)][Top of Archive]

RE: Color Blindness and TWing

Subject: RE: Color Blindness and TWing
From: "Kevin McGowan" <thatguy_80 -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:39:23 -0400

Interesting topic.

In the early days of our product, we had a color-blind tech writer (and I know he reads this list a lot!). He was able to influence our UI design somewhat.

In fact, we had user-configurable options in the UI that would say something like:

"I want my critical alarms to appear: red, green, blue, etc..."

Sadly, those options have vanished from our product, but it's a good idea to make the UI somewhat configurable. Even a question at the beginning of the course that says "if you're colorblind, click this button...that will change the color scheme to make it easier to read."

of course, there are different types of colorblindness, I believe...but I'm not quite sure which types are most common.




From: "David Loveless" <daveloveless -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: Color Blindness and TWing
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:04:02 -0600

Okay, so this might be more of a Friday kind of issue, but it is one I
deal with daily.

As a color blind person, I am highly aware of my color selections in
my documentation and UI designs. However, I notice that many non-color
blind people are sometimes completely unaware of the issues we face.
For example, at one job I wrote user documentation for a training
program for almost six months before one of my coworkers pointed out
that incorrect answers in our training software were marked with a red
X. Really? I had no idea. Still don't, really. For all I know, my
coworker made that up. Even sadder is that our audience was primarily
males (upwards of 90%). Since color blindness affects roughly 12% of
all males, I can't even begin to dream how many members of our
audience went through an entire training program without ever knowing
which answers they missed. Fortunately, I was able to influence a
color and design change for the next version of the software.

So, my questions are these:

1. How aware are you of color blindness?

2. How much do you understand about color blindness (causes,
misconceptions, results)?

3. How much of an affect and what affects do you believe color
blindness has on your audience.

4. What steps do you take to limit the problems caused by color blindness?

5. (This one is just for my own kicks and giggles) Are you or a
technical communicator you know color blind?

Thanks all,

Dave
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l

Doc-To-Help includes a one-click RoboHelp project converter. It's that easy. Watch the demo at http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as thatguy_80 -at- hotmail -dot- com -dot-
To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/thatguy_80%40hotmail.com

To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


_________________________________________________________________
Don't just Search. Find! http://search.sympatico.msn.ca/default.aspx The new MSN Search! Check it out!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Doc-To-Help includes a one-click RoboHelp project converter. It's that easy. Watch the demo at http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- infoinfocus -dot- com -dot-
To unsubscribe send a blank email to techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40infoinfocus.com

To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.

References:
Color Blindness and TWing: From: David Loveless

Previous by Author: Generating PDFs from Word
Next by Author: RE: It's PIZZA FRIDAY!!
Previous by Thread: Re: Generating PDFs from Word
Next by Thread: Re: Color Blindness and TWing

[Top of Archive] | [Author Index (this month)] | [Thread Index (this month)]

What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:

Sponsored Ads