Re: Colorblindness, WAS: ARGH! Question about screen captures

["Pro TechWriter" <pro -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com>]

David, thank you. You said it much better than I did!

That settles my issue. I will use a black box with a thick line if I need to
highlight an area on a screen capture.

Otherwise, I am going to follow Bill's suggestion (which I used to do) and
number (black number in a white circle) the areas on the graphic that
require explanation and then write it out.

There are several people at work who are insisting on the red-on-gray color
scheme. I will use your argument (anonymously of course) as one of the best
justifications I have heard to avoid this altogether.

I feel a blog entry coming on :-)

Thanks to all of you!
PT

On Dec 3, 2007 12:33 PM, David Loveless <daveloveless -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> Ah... The colorblind issue in usability.
>
> There are many misconceptions about colorblindness, even a few that are
> promoted right here. As a colorblind person, it is on the forefront of my
> mind when I develop my documentation. The single best solution is to avoid
> color in all aspects. You are almost guaranteed to have a problem no
> matter
> the colors you use simply because colorblindness can affect any and all
> colors even for your simple red/green colorblind people. But if you cannot
> avoid the color, at least follow some basic tips:
>
> 1. Never ever ever use red and green together. Just don't do it.
>
> 2. Never use red or green on a gray background. I have told the story many
> times of working on a language training project for several months before
> I
> realized that incorrect user responses were marked with a red X. I just
> didn't know because the red X was placed on a gray background.
>
> 3. Never use varying shades of the same color to distinguish differences.
> Another example from my experience was a training manual where each
> chapter
> was distinguished by a varying shade of brown. Again, I had no idea that
> there was a difference.
>
> 4. If you must use color, provide a black barrier between the colors.
> Black
> helps define the color edge and gives shape to the color. Going back to
> tip
> 2, if those red Xs would have had a black outline, I would have seen them
> without any problem. True, I would have not seen the red probably, but I
> would have seen the shape.
>
> 5. Always provide another method of distinguishing something other than
> color. There's a reason links in web pages use color, bold, and underline.
>
> If you'd like to read a good, mythbusting explanation of what
> colorblindness
> is, I wrote a brief article for my blog on the subject. The link is below:
>
> http://daveloveless.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/into-the-deep-red-sea-a-journey-in-colorblindness/
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