Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#11

Post by mtu9001 » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

aaossa wrote: post #4

I have a legit question. Do colorblind people use some extension in their browser? This post gave me the idea that maybe some extension could show them the warnings and some options to scale the colors in an appropiate manner. My first idea was to try using it in development, to check how colorblind people see our apps and provide a solution. Do you have any further plans or ideas with this? (It's an interesting topi…

I suffer from deuteranopia and use the Spectrum extension in Chrome from Yehor Lvivski.

It's ok for switching between different color modes so I can see differences in them.

I am intrigued by the Enchroma glasses, haven't wanted to gamble $300+ on them yet.

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#12

Post by readams » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

tsm wrote: post #7

robbrown451 wrote: post #3

An interesting question might be, which is the best approach: having designers alter their designs (which means everyone is affected), vs. client side settings that alter the appearance just for those affected? I just am not so fond of the idea that all designs must be compromised (both aesthetically and functionally) for everyone else, if there are solutions that work as well without affecting everyone.

Disclaimer: I'm colorblind. There are SO MANY designs that use indistinguishable colors for no good reason at all. It's perverse that League of Legends uses blue and purple as its team colors—literally anything else (blue and red is my vote) would be easier for many colorblind users to tell apart. And a lot of heatmaps use gradients that go from blue to purple or from red to green…why‽ I'm willing to admit that the v…

Red and green are particularly easy to distinguish for people with normal vision because the sensitivity spectra overlap so much. So when you don't consider colorblind people it's a very natural choice.

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#13

Post by tofof » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

The author uses CMC I:c (and somewhat incorrectly claims it's also called Delta E, which normally refers to one of the CIELAB metrics). Then he notes the asymmetry of that quasimetric, and a workaround -- averaging the C1,C2 and C2,C1 distances.

I wonder if perhaps he would be better served by simply using the actual "Delta E" metric, specifically ΔE*₀₀, which doesn't have this symmetry problem?

PS. Sexy interactive color matrix table. Small error in the text below -- values >=40 are highlighted, not >45.

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#14

Post by Larrikin » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

mmjaa wrote: post #8

I kind of wish the OS Vendors were not asleep at the wheel, and had features to address these issues as a 'built-in' value proposition for their products. I mean, it seems to me the sort of thing that a computer ought to know how to deal with, inherently .. and sure, some vendors do make an effort to make these kinds of human differences accessible. But its just .. well maybe there is a broader malaise with OS vendor…

Not sure about iOS, but Android has multiple color blind settings built in.

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#15

Post by Nadya » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

tsm wrote: post #7

robbrown451 wrote: post #3

An interesting question might be, which is the best approach: having designers alter their designs (which means everyone is affected), vs. client side settings that alter the appearance just for those affected? I just am not so fond of the idea that all designs must be compromised (both aesthetically and functionally) for everyone else, if there are solutions that work as well without affecting everyone.

Disclaimer: I'm colorblind. There are SO MANY designs that use indistinguishable colors for no good reason at all. It's perverse that League of Legends uses blue and purple as its team colors—literally anything else (blue and red is my vote) would be easier for many colorblind users to tell apart. And a lot of heatmaps use gradients that go from blue to purple or from red to green…why‽ I'm willing to admit that the v…

League of Legends offers a colorblind mode in game that does exactly that - changes the teams to Blue and Red from Blue and Purple.

IIRC, they even use that mode for their E-sports tournament streams - but I might be wrong on that as I haven't watched any LoL tournaments in quite some time.

E: Just tuned into the EU LCS to take a screenshot - and it has colorblind mode on: https://vgy.me/ijQgrR.png

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#16

Post by gka » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

tofof wrote: post #13

The author uses CMC I:c (and somewhat incorrectly claims it's also called Delta E, which normally refers to one of the CIELAB metrics). Then he notes the asymmetry of that quasimetric, and a workaround -- averaging the C1,C2 and C2,C1 distances. I wonder if perhaps he would be better served by simply using the actual "Delta E" metric, specifically ΔE*₀₀, which doesn't have this symmetry problem? PS. Sexy interactive…

Author here, thanks for the feedback.

Well the only thing I know about DeltaE I know from Bruce Lindbloom's website, where he uses the terms interchangably. http://brucelindbloom.com/Eqn_DeltaE_CMC.html

But I'm happy to try out the CIELAB deltaE as well. I can already see another dropdown for comparing difference metrics coming up :)

Will fix the text error you found.

--edit: after reading again I see that he used DeltaE as a sort of broader category. worth fixing as well

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#17

Post by mkempe » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

Thank you, this is great work.

While implementing the UI for a medical device I had the disappointing experience of having to work with a UX company that designed an interface that relied almost exclusively on colors to indicate results and state (red, green, orange, blue, yellow...). When I pointed out that the color blind would not be able to understand their color-based system they refused to make any changes -- not even adding distinct icons for distinct results. These people claim to be UX specialists for medical devices.

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#18

Post by discreditable » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 7:55 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #15

tsm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm colorblind. There are SO MANY designs that use indistinguishable colors for no good reason at all. It's perverse that League of Legends uses blue and purple as its team colors—literally anything else (blue and red is my vote) would be easier for many colorblind users to tell apart. And a lot of heatmaps use gradients that go from blue to purple or from red to green…why‽ I'm willing to admit that the v…

League of Legends offers a colorblind mode in game that does exactly that - changes the teams to Blue and Red from Blue and Purple. IIRC, they even use that mode for their E-sports tournament streams - but I might be wrong on that as I haven't watched any LoL tournaments in quite some time. E: Just tuned into the EU LCS to take a screenshot - and it has colorblind mode on: https://vgy.me/ijQgrR.png

I'm not colorblind and I use colorblind mode just because I think it looks better!

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#19

Post by memco » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

tsm wrote: post #7

robbrown451 wrote: post #3

An interesting question might be, which is the best approach: having designers alter their designs (which means everyone is affected), vs. client side settings that alter the appearance just for those affected? I just am not so fond of the idea that all designs must be compromised (both aesthetically and functionally) for everyone else, if there are solutions that work as well without affecting everyone.

Disclaimer: I'm colorblind. There are SO MANY designs that use indistinguishable colors for no good reason at all. It's perverse that League of Legends uses blue and purple as its team colors—literally anything else (blue and red is my vote) would be easier for many colorblind users to tell apart. And a lot of heatmaps use gradients that go from blue to purple or from red to green…why‽ I'm willing to admit that the v…

Your comment reminded me of the talks on the issue of information display for Matplotlib[0][1]. I think a lot of design is done without awareness of accessibility and this is more broadly a cultural thing than a technical thing. The situation can be improved both by technical means (OS or hardware awareness) as well as by our collective education about what kinds of issues designs should consider. Typically, designs become better when they account for accessibility, but it is oftentimes seen as a hurdle when a designer or developer has not heard about the issues and also is not equipped with tools to handle them. Having good tools is helpful here. The situation seems to be improving, but it will take time.

When I was in elementary school, you had to special order large print text books, audio books were available, but required special tapes & players. A portable CCTV could be used to magnify small print. All of this equipment was specialized, expensive and hard to come by for most people. All of this has been replaced by features built into my phone. Special shoutouts to the "Zoom" app on iOS, that thing has color filters for people with color sensitivity issues and enhanced text rendering for small print (unfortunately, it's buggy and crashes sometimes), but it is much better than littering my camera roll with random pictures of menus or the bottom of routers just so I can zoom in on some numbers.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjHzLUnHeM0

Re: Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

#20

Post by memco » Fri, Feb 09, 2018, 8:04 PM UTC

nix0n wrote: post #6

Now that I've detected my color ramp is inadequate, where can I find a good one? Am I limited to greyscale or other single-hue ramps? Do I need multiple color ramps for deuteranopia vs protanopia?

See the links I posted in my reply to another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16343367. There's some good information in those talks about how you can tackle mapping information.