Accessibility in design is a form of empathy
April 8, 2023 7:25 AM Subscribe
MeFi's Own Andy Baio on interacting with a world that wasn't designed with color-blindness in mind. Come for the interactive diagrams, stay for the solid The Purge joke.
I build print ads and a lot of the audience is older. Color-blindness is something I’ve been teaching myself to keep in mind as I work. Sometimes clients will request a particular color combination and I’ll send screenshots of various color proofing modes and ask them, “This is what it looks like to readers with color blindness issues, do you REALLY want to do this?” Once they see that some people can’t read the ad text anymore, they usually listen.
posted by azpenguin at 8:25 AM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 8:25 AM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Fortunately, standards for traffic signals dictate at least that red is on the top/left and green is on the bottom/right. Single (flashing) signals are usually only red or yellow, not green. But, yeah, it's something training has to teach, and it makes driving harder/more difficult, especially at night when you may not be able to see the outline of the fixture against the dark background and so unable to easily discern relative position.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:25 AM on April 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:25 AM on April 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
In the US, the MUTCD has strict rules around placement of the lights; if you can't distinguish the colors, you could go off the order of the lights and their behavior (greens will never flash, for instance). Just did some quick web searching and apparently they've started adding some mixed colors, partly for visibility and partly for this issue.
Trying to think off the top of my head where this would be an issue. Spanwire single-bulb lights are a problem, I'm guessing; you could have a flashing yellow (usually near a fire station), or a flashing red (stop sign, essentially, for where placing a sign itself maybe doesn't make sense) and it might be difficult to impossible to determine which it is, especially at speed.
posted by curious nu at 8:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Trying to think off the top of my head where this would be an issue. Spanwire single-bulb lights are a problem, I'm guessing; you could have a flashing yellow (usually near a fire station), or a flashing red (stop sign, essentially, for where placing a sign itself maybe doesn't make sense) and it might be difficult to impossible to determine which it is, especially at speed.
posted by curious nu at 8:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Anyway the best solution to making colour features discernible is to not only find colours that contrast well with people with atypical vision, but also to add texture. It can be subtle, but using e.g. small dots / dashes / cross hatches or other patterns to contrasting fills is enormously helpful to everyone. You don't even have to make them high contrast, subtle is fine. And traffic signals sometimes use gobos (silhouettes) like arrows or bars to help, but they should always have done.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
This is a really great article/tool, I'm going to be sharing this with a LOT of people.
posted by curious nu at 8:37 AM on April 8, 2023
posted by curious nu at 8:37 AM on April 8, 2023
Are people with deuteranopia just not able to drive?
I have this and I don't have a problem at all. To me, green lights appear closer to white but nothing like the yellow and red, so no issues at intersections. The only annoyance I have is I can't easily tell the difference between vehicles with yellow caution lights and vehicles with red emergency lights. You should slow down and prepare to yield anyway in both cases which is why I say annoyance rather than problem.
I should note that every person is different so this is totally subjective.
posted by tommasz at 8:44 AM on April 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
I have this and I don't have a problem at all. To me, green lights appear closer to white but nothing like the yellow and red, so no issues at intersections. The only annoyance I have is I can't easily tell the difference between vehicles with yellow caution lights and vehicles with red emergency lights. You should slow down and prepare to yield anyway in both cases which is why I say annoyance rather than problem.
I should note that every person is different so this is totally subjective.
posted by tommasz at 8:44 AM on April 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Besides, why do colorblind people have to purchase expensive glasses in order to function in the world when designers could make very minor changes that make a huge difference for a whole lot of people?
That’s the most frustrating thing about these accessibility issues — they’re very much avoidable!
Sounds like everything else in life: if we just change the entire culture....and good luck with that.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:57 AM on April 8, 2023
That’s the most frustrating thing about these accessibility issues — they’re very much avoidable!
Sounds like everything else in life: if we just change the entire culture....and good luck with that.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:57 AM on April 8, 2023
I'm in electronics and regularly struggle to discern the color of status lights- the prevalence of multi color LEDS has made it possible for manufacturers to consolidate what would have been multiple discrete indicators into a single LED to save money and panel space. My workaround is to do an extreme close up photo of the LED with my phone camera which "blows out/saturates" the colors in a way that I can just about see them. I also have a early colorblindness assistance app (the name escapes me and I can't find the device I have it on right now) which is unfortunately very glitchy and prone to freezing. In the big picture, things could be much worse, but red/green colorblindness is so prevalent that it's a bit surprising that designing with that in mind isn't more routine.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 9:01 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 9:01 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Sounds like everything else in life: if we just change the entire culture....and good luck with that.
Nothing wrong with bringing these design problems to people's attention. Many might listen, I hope.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:10 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Nothing wrong with bringing these design problems to people's attention. Many might listen, I hope.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:10 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why is stupidass track changes in red and green? I've been sending people edits for 20+ years and it only occurred to me this month what a nightmare track changes must be for people who can't see red and green.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:25 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 9:25 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
"Why is stupidass track changes in red and green? I've been sending people edits for 20+ years and it only occurred to me this month what a nightmare track changes must be for people who can't see red and green."
It is?!
posted by idb at 9:28 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
It is?!
posted by idb at 9:28 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
My piece is getting so much love, I really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing it, Cortex.
Like tommasz said, stoplights nationally use a darker red and a light green (which appears nearly white to me), making them easy to distinguish from each other. In the daytime, the position is also a clear indicator. They’re presumably harder for me to distinguish from other streetlights at night compared to people with normal color vision, but it’s never really been an issue.
posted by waxpancake at 9:30 AM on April 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
Like tommasz said, stoplights nationally use a darker red and a light green (which appears nearly white to me), making them easy to distinguish from each other. In the daytime, the position is also a clear indicator. They’re presumably harder for me to distinguish from other streetlights at night compared to people with normal color vision, but it’s never really been an issue.
posted by waxpancake at 9:30 AM on April 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
I'm in electronics and regularly struggle to discern the color of status lights- the prevalence of multi color LEDS has made it possible for manufacturers to consolidate what would have been multiple discrete indicators into a single LED to save money and panel space.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to buy a newfangled Peavey guitar amp. On paper, it was a great value and chock full of useful features. It sounded quite good, and delivered on all its selling points. However, the control panel is absolutely laden with blinky multi color LEDs for everything. I knew that the display somewhat resembled a Las Vegas show sign, but hadn't realized how dependent the usage was on color changes. Every knob is surrounded by LEDs that change color to indicate the multiple functions it can control. For me, it looks like the LED changes brightness very slightly when it's actually changing color. It took all of two minutes to determine that this amp simply had to go back. And yes, the LEDs on the amp are pretty blinky, especially when there was no cable plugged in. Which also got obnoxious. At least none of the LEDs were blue.
stoplights nationally use a darker red and a light green (which appears nearly white to me)
When I was a kid, "Green light means Go" is something you learn pretty early. I never thought too much how the maybe dirty white light was supposed to be the green. Everyone called it green. So whatever.
Occasionally, I come across a blinking traffic indicator that has me wondering if it's red or yellow. This is something that could be better.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:46 AM on April 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
At the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to buy a newfangled Peavey guitar amp. On paper, it was a great value and chock full of useful features. It sounded quite good, and delivered on all its selling points. However, the control panel is absolutely laden with blinky multi color LEDs for everything. I knew that the display somewhat resembled a Las Vegas show sign, but hadn't realized how dependent the usage was on color changes. Every knob is surrounded by LEDs that change color to indicate the multiple functions it can control. For me, it looks like the LED changes brightness very slightly when it's actually changing color. It took all of two minutes to determine that this amp simply had to go back. And yes, the LEDs on the amp are pretty blinky, especially when there was no cable plugged in. Which also got obnoxious. At least none of the LEDs were blue.
stoplights nationally use a darker red and a light green (which appears nearly white to me)
When I was a kid, "Green light means Go" is something you learn pretty early. I never thought too much how the maybe dirty white light was supposed to be the green. Everyone called it green. So whatever.
Occasionally, I come across a blinking traffic indicator that has me wondering if it's red or yellow. This is something that could be better.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:46 AM on April 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Traffic lights didn't use to be standardized. Apparently my great grand uncle used to run red lights at a particular intersection where the red light was at the bottom. Nowadays like others have said they add some blue to the green to make it more visible to people with color weak vision. If you have a large storm coming in playing with the color of the sky this is more obvious.
posted by ockmockbock at 9:46 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by ockmockbock at 9:46 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Part of the 8% here. I find that people add colors to spreadsheets. If they don't add a color key, then the colors are just for decorative purposes. But even then, adding a pattern as well as the color would help. Except for the black text on a red background, that's just unreadable for me.
posted by mdoar at 10:18 AM on April 8, 2023
posted by mdoar at 10:18 AM on April 8, 2023
R/G colorblind here. Traffic lights are fine for me unless it’s foggy.
As has been brought up, the issue with red and green is that (generally speaking) red and green are so similar in saturation. Burgundy and forest green? Problem. Bright red and light pastel green? Not a problem.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 2:05 PM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
As has been brought up, the issue with red and green is that (generally speaking) red and green are so similar in saturation. Burgundy and forest green? Problem. Bright red and light pastel green? Not a problem.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 2:05 PM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yeah, if you look at a color circle you can see how e.g, yellow and purple, which are similarly opposed, don't have the same non-chroma similarity. Bright yellow is a very "light" color; even bright purple is relatively "dark". But full-on pure red and full-on pure green (i.e roughly speaking evenly mixed blue and yellow) tend to have the same middling intensity aside from the specific hue: subtract that hue information and they're functionally the same basic shade.
(I think "saturation" is not technically the useful term here, vs "value" which generally refers to perceptual lightness/darkness, but that's term-of-art wankery. In said wankery, "saturation" is more about how pure the color is, not how light or dark it is: a high-saturation red will be very red indeed, a low-saturation red will be a dusky grey-red.)
A way to think about deuteranopia might be to consider red/green to be a single grey scale, against which blueness and light/dark contrast. You're removing a degree of distinction from the typical RGB-ish range of color perception: colorblind folks are still perceiving color on a multi-dimensional basis like typical trichromatic seers, but it's a two-vector view instead of three-vector. All the other stuff—texture, relative brightness, etc—is still in place, but some of the stuff most folks take for granted in terms of hue distinction go by the wayside.
If I was designing traffic signaling from the ground up, I'd work with something Andy mentions in the article: not depending on a single channel of information to communicate distinction. Instead of red, yellow, green, do e.g. red-square, yellow-triangle, green-circle, so if one channel (hue) is for whatever reason unavailable, another (shape) can still communicate unambiguously the intent. The cited MUTDC regs get at that to an extent with imposing a strict modern order on signals, but esp. in the modern context of cheap, durable LEDS moving to a shaped signal color could help in a way that might not have been reasonably accomplishable in the 1950s.
posted by cortex at 4:28 PM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
(I think "saturation" is not technically the useful term here, vs "value" which generally refers to perceptual lightness/darkness, but that's term-of-art wankery. In said wankery, "saturation" is more about how pure the color is, not how light or dark it is: a high-saturation red will be very red indeed, a low-saturation red will be a dusky grey-red.)
A way to think about deuteranopia might be to consider red/green to be a single grey scale, against which blueness and light/dark contrast. You're removing a degree of distinction from the typical RGB-ish range of color perception: colorblind folks are still perceiving color on a multi-dimensional basis like typical trichromatic seers, but it's a two-vector view instead of three-vector. All the other stuff—texture, relative brightness, etc—is still in place, but some of the stuff most folks take for granted in terms of hue distinction go by the wayside.
If I was designing traffic signaling from the ground up, I'd work with something Andy mentions in the article: not depending on a single channel of information to communicate distinction. Instead of red, yellow, green, do e.g. red-square, yellow-triangle, green-circle, so if one channel (hue) is for whatever reason unavailable, another (shape) can still communicate unambiguously the intent. The cited MUTDC regs get at that to an extent with imposing a strict modern order on signals, but esp. in the modern context of cheap, durable LEDS moving to a shaped signal color could help in a way that might not have been reasonably accomplishable in the 1950s.
posted by cortex at 4:28 PM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also have deuteranopia and the hardest thing for me is coming terms with and keeping in mind that most other people don't see the same colours I do. Something that can look wicked cool to me is often not so much to other people (and vice versa). Something that endlessly amuses my spouse.
I'm also an electrician but red green differentiation isn't as important as Red/Black/Blue (in power wiring) because (in Canada/USA) the green is used exclusively for bond/ground and position/use differentiates. And a lot of equipment is starting to come with green with yellow trace instead of plain green.
posted by Mitheral at 6:16 PM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm also an electrician but red green differentiation isn't as important as Red/Black/Blue (in power wiring) because (in Canada/USA) the green is used exclusively for bond/ground and position/use differentiates. And a lot of equipment is starting to come with green with yellow trace instead of plain green.
posted by Mitheral at 6:16 PM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Another electronics engineer gripe: I'm partially colorblind and I can not read resistor color codes. It doesn't help that every manufacturer uses slightly different shades, and that they're organized in a continuous spectrum, and that the last band is an exponent. Oh, you thought that brown band looked a little reddish? Screw you, you're now off by a factor of ten.
I just spent most of my day teaching students to do SMT soldering by hand, which I much prefer to THT nowadays in no small part because surface mount resistors have the value code numerically printed on the resistor instead of messing around with color codes, which, and I can not stress this enough, are such bullshit.
posted by phooky at 7:09 PM on April 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I just spent most of my day teaching students to do SMT soldering by hand, which I much prefer to THT nowadays in no small part because surface mount resistors have the value code numerically printed on the resistor instead of messing around with color codes, which, and I can not stress this enough, are such bullshit.
posted by phooky at 7:09 PM on April 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm in electronics and regularly struggle to discern the color of status lights- the prevalence of multi color LEDS has made it possible for manufacturers to consolidate what would have been multiple discrete indicators into a single LED to save money and panel space.
In one of my lazier moments I sent a student employee to look at the LED indicator on a power supply; this is how I learned that student was color blind when I was getting contradictory data from elsewhere, because the green and amber lights were identical to him. (I forget why I didn't have that state accessible to me from my desk)
posted by pwnguin at 9:18 PM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
In one of my lazier moments I sent a student employee to look at the LED indicator on a power supply; this is how I learned that student was color blind when I was getting contradictory data from elsewhere, because the green and amber lights were identical to him. (I forget why I didn't have that state accessible to me from my desk)
posted by pwnguin at 9:18 PM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
(I think "saturation" is not technically the useful term here, vs "value" which generally refers to perceptual lightness/darkness
The word I was taught for the lightness/darkness value of colour is "tone".
Colour has hue, saturation, and tone.
Hue: red, puply red, blue, cyan, turquoise etc
Saturation is how intense the colour is. Saturated colours look pure, often artificial. Desaturated colours look dim and often greyish.
Tone refers to the scale from dark to bright.
So on this page, the green link text is legible on the blue background not just because its hue is different (green against blue) but because its tonality is different (the green link text is significantly paler than the blue background)
With text in particular, things are legible if the hue as well as the tonality are in just the correct range of contrast. This is true for everyone, not just people who perceive colours differently.
For example, pale green text on a very dark red background isn't great but might still be legible to most people.
But bright green text on tonaly similar red is illegible to most people. The high contrast in hue combined with low contrast in tonality produces a extremely unpleasant juddering effect if you can see red and green.
I'm struggling to write this accurately because surely there is no such thing as seeing a colour inaccurately? Colour exists only in the eye and brain so there's no such thing as colour blind, surely? It's just a convenient term for people who perceive colour differently.
I'm half awake so I hope the above makes sense and is on topic.
posted by Zumbador at 9:33 PM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
The word I was taught for the lightness/darkness value of colour is "tone".
Colour has hue, saturation, and tone.
Hue: red, puply red, blue, cyan, turquoise etc
Saturation is how intense the colour is. Saturated colours look pure, often artificial. Desaturated colours look dim and often greyish.
Tone refers to the scale from dark to bright.
So on this page, the green link text is legible on the blue background not just because its hue is different (green against blue) but because its tonality is different (the green link text is significantly paler than the blue background)
With text in particular, things are legible if the hue as well as the tonality are in just the correct range of contrast. This is true for everyone, not just people who perceive colours differently.
For example, pale green text on a very dark red background isn't great but might still be legible to most people.
But bright green text on tonaly similar red is illegible to most people. The high contrast in hue combined with low contrast in tonality produces a extremely unpleasant juddering effect if you can see red and green.
I'm struggling to write this accurately because surely there is no such thing as seeing a colour inaccurately? Colour exists only in the eye and brain so there's no such thing as colour blind, surely? It's just a convenient term for people who perceive colour differently.
I'm half awake so I hope the above makes sense and is on topic.
posted by Zumbador at 9:33 PM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
As far as I know, I have normal color vision. But my phone switches to black-and-white mode every night at bedtime and it's pretty impressive how much less usable the internet is. Lots of things on the web don't make sense without color. It was funny to see Wordle called out in the article because I occasionally will absentmindedly open it up right after midnight and try a word and then be like "oh, right, I do these in the morning for a reason, these shades of gray mean nothing to me."
Both Android and iPhone have an app called "Chromatic Vision Simulator" which purports to filter the colors on your phone so you can see what a person with various color vision difficulties would see. If you're someone who builds software for phones, opening it up in the various colorblind settings seems like a reasonable QA step before releasing new stuff.
posted by potrzebie at 10:08 PM on April 8, 2023
Both Android and iPhone have an app called "Chromatic Vision Simulator" which purports to filter the colors on your phone so you can see what a person with various color vision difficulties would see. If you're someone who builds software for phones, opening it up in the various colorblind settings seems like a reasonable QA step before releasing new stuff.
posted by potrzebie at 10:08 PM on April 8, 2023
If you use Apple stuff another helpful tool for designing for colour blindness is Sim Daltonism
posted by tomp at 9:05 AM on April 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tomp at 9:05 AM on April 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
> not depending on a single channel of information to communicate distinction. Instead of red, yellow, green, do e.g. red-square, yellow-triangle, green-circle
We even already have a language for the visual symbols: a red X for stop, and a green arrow for go.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:03 PM on April 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We even already have a language for the visual symbols: a red X for stop, and a green arrow for go.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:03 PM on April 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
world isn't designed for us folks under five foot either
posted by Mesaverdian at 2:11 PM on April 9, 2023
posted by Mesaverdian at 2:11 PM on April 9, 2023
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