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1. How aware are you of color blindness? Very - my Dad is colorblind
(red/green) - it's always been a source of great amusement in our
family. When he was on active duty in the AF, all his socks were black
- easier that way. Well, when he retired, my sister and I harassed him
to get "civilian" socks. He did, but often came out with a red one and
a black/brown/gray one - they looked the same to him!
2. How much do you understand about color blindness (causes,
misconceptions, results)? Good general understanding - I know there are
different kinds, about who carries it, etc.
3. How much of an affect and what affects do you believe color
blindness has on your audience. For the most part in my career, little
or none. However, in the last few years I've been more adamant about
insisting on applying accessibility standards in the several jobs I've
had.
4. What steps do you take to limit the problems caused by color
blindness? Pretty much the same as everyone else who's responded.
5. (This one is just for my own kicks and giggles) Are you or a
technical communicator you know color blind?
A project manager I worked for a while back one day asked me what the
the "little squiggles" under a word meant (it was the on-screen grammar
checker in Word). I explained that it was the grammar checker, and that
the red was for spelling and the green was for grammar. His response
was "They're different colors?!" Turned out he was red/green colorblind
and they both just looked kinda gray to him. In fact, he didn't believe
me when I told him they were different colors - kept asking people all
day long "are these really different colors?" - thought I was just
teasing him. But, it really brought home to me how a reliance on color
can backfire.
Clare L. Turner
Technical Writer
Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc.
15020 N. 74th Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480.607.3583
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+cturner=redflex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+cturner=redflex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of David Loveless
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:04 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Color Blindness and TWing
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
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