A great resource for this is http://colorbrewer2.org It was originally designed for maps, but the colour schemes really work for any kind of data visualisation. There is also an option to only...
It was originally designed for maps, but the colour schemes really work for any kind of data visualisation. There is also an option to only choose colour-blind safe colour schemes.
I liked this piece a lot. Unfortunately, as a colorblind person, I think there is an over-reliance on color in GUIs. Color should be used to reenforce distinctions in an interface, but it...
I liked this piece a lot. Unfortunately, as a colorblind person, I think there is an over-reliance on color in GUIs. Color should be used to reenforce distinctions in an interface, but it shouldn’t be the primary way to make a semantic or functional distinction.
In the last example provided with the rendering of the colored badges, I can hardly see a difference in the two right-most badges even with the redesigned full-color background.
I appreciate all the design effort and engineering that was described, and I understand I’m a minority (though depending on the population you sample, potentially a significant minority), but I think designers need to take a step back and think about why they are using color in the first place. Using color as part of design is one thing, but using color as part of an interface where color actually pertains to semantics or function is a much hairier thing. At the least, if you do do this, it’s very much appreciated to add a color-blind mode that makes the color-only distinctions more explicit.
Oh, this is a good opportunity to ask: how is using Tildes as a colorblind person? I've generally tried not to use color exclusively to indicate much, but there are some things (such as the...
Oh, this is a good opportunity to ask: how is using Tildes as a colorblind person? I've generally tried not to use color exclusively to indicate much, but there are some things (such as the "stripes" down the left side of comments) that do rely on it.
Are there particular things that you have difficulty with here? Which theme(s) do you use? Should we add a theme especially intended for colorblind people?
Not the person you asked, but I am colorblind (strong/moderate protan) too. I basically don't have any issues, because basically everything is represented by text. The only thing I can't tell...
Not the person you asked, but I am colorblind (strong/moderate protan) too. I basically don't have any issues, because basically everything is represented by text. The only thing I can't tell apart is the difference between the exemplary comment stripe and the stripe on comments made by me on the solarized dark theme which I use. It really isn't a problem at all though, because I can easily see a difference between exemplary comments and my comments, just by looking at the name.
Looking at the awesome new theme preview site it seems to me that most of the themes have the same problem, some being worse and some being better (for example with the dracula theme I can tell them all apart easily). If someone can't tell the difference between the different labels they can just change the theme, so I think Tildes is great for colorblind people. Well at least speaking as a protan, maybe monochromats could have some problems, but as far as I know they are extremely rare and you couldn't use color to show differences between things at all. If you'd like to be 100% sure no one would have problems with the colors you could add a theme which uses some patterns on the stripes in addition to the colors, but it's probably not worth it and I am not sure how much work it would take.
I’m using the “Atom One (dark)” theme and don’t have any issues. Most interface elements are text, so it’s very easy to navigate. Honestly I’m not really sure what all the different colors in the...
I’m using the “Atom One (dark)” theme and don’t have any issues. Most interface elements are text, so it’s very easy to navigate. Honestly I’m not really sure what all the different colors in the “stripes” represent, but I can tell what’s new from everything else, which is sufficient for me.
Edit: Also, I have the most common type of color blindness which is red-green (meaning reds and greens are duller and closer to grey or brown to me than those with normal color vision and purples often appear blue, and light greens look like yellows sometimes). I can’t speak for anyone who has other types.
I too noticed the lack of colorblindness-accessibility discussion in the article—which purely focuses on the existence of contrast. That said, they addressed this in a relevant HN submission:
I too noticed the lack of colorblindness-accessibility discussion in the article—which purely focuses on the existence of contrast. That said, they addressed this in a relevant HN submission:
Yes, it's part of our internal guidelines for color usage in product interfaces that color should never be the only visual means of conveying information. There's a lot of different ways that can be applied in different contexts, but it's something we discuss fairly often as a team when reviewing designs.
I got burned on this so often the charts in my papers are now exclusively greyscale/symbol based. Half the time they're printed in the journal in greyscale anyways, and I leave the flashy...
I got burned on this so often the charts in my papers are now exclusively greyscale/symbol based. Half the time they're printed in the journal in greyscale anyways, and I leave the flashy colourful stuff to anime.
A great resource for this is http://colorbrewer2.org
It was originally designed for maps, but the colour schemes really work for any kind of data visualisation. There is also an option to only choose colour-blind safe colour schemes.
I liked this piece a lot. Unfortunately, as a colorblind person, I think there is an over-reliance on color in GUIs. Color should be used to reenforce distinctions in an interface, but it shouldn’t be the primary way to make a semantic or functional distinction.
In the last example provided with the rendering of the colored badges, I can hardly see a difference in the two right-most badges even with the redesigned full-color background.
I appreciate all the design effort and engineering that was described, and I understand I’m a minority (though depending on the population you sample, potentially a significant minority), but I think designers need to take a step back and think about why they are using color in the first place. Using color as part of design is one thing, but using color as part of an interface where color actually pertains to semantics or function is a much hairier thing. At the least, if you do do this, it’s very much appreciated to add a color-blind mode that makes the color-only distinctions more explicit.
Oh, this is a good opportunity to ask: how is using Tildes as a colorblind person? I've generally tried not to use color exclusively to indicate much, but there are some things (such as the "stripes" down the left side of comments) that do rely on it.
Are there particular things that you have difficulty with here? Which theme(s) do you use? Should we add a theme especially intended for colorblind people?
Not the person you asked, but I am colorblind (strong/moderate protan) too. I basically don't have any issues, because basically everything is represented by text. The only thing I can't tell apart is the difference between the exemplary comment stripe and the stripe on comments made by me on the solarized dark theme which I use. It really isn't a problem at all though, because I can easily see a difference between exemplary comments and my comments, just by looking at the name.
Looking at the awesome new theme preview site it seems to me that most of the themes have the same problem, some being worse and some being better (for example with the dracula theme I can tell them all apart easily). If someone can't tell the difference between the different labels they can just change the theme, so I think Tildes is great for colorblind people. Well at least speaking as a protan, maybe monochromats could have some problems, but as far as I know they are extremely rare and you couldn't use color to show differences between things at all. If you'd like to be 100% sure no one would have problems with the colors you could add a theme which uses some patterns on the stripes in addition to the colors, but it's probably not worth it and I am not sure how much work it would take.
I’m using the “Atom One (dark)” theme and don’t have any issues. Most interface elements are text, so it’s very easy to navigate. Honestly I’m not really sure what all the different colors in the “stripes” represent, but I can tell what’s new from everything else, which is sufficient for me.
Edit: Also, I have the most common type of color blindness which is red-green (meaning reds and greens are duller and closer to grey or brown to me than those with normal color vision and purples often appear blue, and light greens look like yellows sometimes). I can’t speak for anyone who has other types.
I too noticed the lack of colorblindness-accessibility discussion in the article—which purely focuses on the existence of contrast. That said, they addressed this in a relevant HN submission:
I got burned on this so often the charts in my papers are now exclusively greyscale/symbol based. Half the time they're printed in the journal in greyscale anyways, and I leave the flashy colourful stuff to anime.
Great read. So often you find colorschemes that don't really work well. This shows you why and what to do about it.