RE: Color blindness

Subject: RE: Color blindness
From: "Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>
To: "'Gene Kim-Eng'" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>, "'John Posada'" <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:33:02 -0700

It's called a redundant signal - using 2 or more indicators as signifiers.
It's basic good design.

But sometimes we document what we have, not what is good.


sharon

Sharon Burton
Product Evangelist, Author-it
951-369-8590
IM: sharonvburton -at- yahoo -dot- com
Twitter: sharonburton
Blog: www.author-it.com/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonvburton



-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Gene Kim-Eng
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 9:10 AM
To: John Posada
Cc: List, Techwriter
Subject: Re: Color blindness

The short answer is yes. Any use of color coding is inevitably going
to be an issue for somebody.

The question for UI designers is one of statistical prediction and
risk assessment, i.e., how many users in 100, 1000 or 10,000 will be
affected, and what is the worst thing that could happen if an affected
user makes an incorrect selection or is unable to make one at all
(there is no color coding in the UIs of voting systems or nuclear
power station controls, for example).

If you need a solution that is absolutely going to affect no users,
then abandon color coding only and either replace or supplement with
text labels or graphic icons with a text bubble option.

Gene Kim-Eng



On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 7:38 AM, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> The issue I'm addressing is whether saying "...the blue Sign In box"
> is going to be impacted by those with color issues.
>
> Do they know, through experience, that blue may be different to them,
> but still recognizable as differentiators, or will it only confuse
> issues.
>
> BTW...we have widgets on our web, some with a blue background and some
> with yellow, and some with orange, hence the reason for mentioning
> color. Just want to know if we are introducing an issue.
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References:
Color blindness: From: John Posada
Re: Color blindness: From: Char James-Tanny
Re: Color blindness: From: John Posada
Re: Color blindness: From: Gene Kim-Eng

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