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Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

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Re: Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

#61

Post by himom »

jedberg wrote: post #26

I love this idea, but sadly it's not for me. I tried this on my phone (going grayscale) and turned it off after 1/2 a day. Too many apps rely on color to differentiate different parts of the app. It definitely gave me a greater appreciation for the plight of the colorblind, and it's why for my own company's products, we always test in B&W, to make sure no functionality is lost. Relatedly, does anyone have any links t…

Yup. Also, we maybe so dopamine sound-, color- & effects-addicted that we’ll subconsciously make any excuse to keep the glowing box neck hunched over. Even street signs to watch for oblivious pedestrians on smartphones, as well as signal-lit crosswalks so pedestrians never have to look up.

Re: Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

#65

Post by John_KZ »

amelius wrote: post #51
jedberg wrote: post #26

I love this idea, but sadly it's not for me. I tried this on my phone (going grayscale) and turned it off after 1/2 a day. Too many apps rely on color to differentiate different parts of the app. It definitely gave me a greater appreciation for the plight of the colorblind, and it's why for my own company's products, we always test in B&W, to make sure no functionality is lost. Relatedly, does anyone have any links t…

This makes me wonder: what if instead of converting everything to grayscale, you swap color channels. I'm sure that would make images less appealing (e.g. human skin color would become something completely different), but still you'd be able to distinguish colors, so functionality isn't lost. Also, black and white, and grayscale stays the same, so text remains readable.

This is easily done, you can create an index for each color or color range.

Additionally, you can mess with the typical B&W conversion weights for each channel.

However this got me thinking, what do we want when we convert an image to bw? It's a pretty hard problem, because we want both semantic segmentation and preserving lightness. Also you clearly can't have a one-to-one mapping when you lose 2 dimensions. Of course in the case of a simple UI that's not a problem, but with photography it is.

Re: Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

#67

Post by devastora »

mehblahwhatevs wrote: post #45
jedberg wrote: post #26

I love this idea, but sadly it's not for me. I tried this on my phone (going grayscale) and turned it off after 1/2 a day. Too many apps rely on color to differentiate different parts of the app. It definitely gave me a greater appreciation for the plight of the colorblind, and it's why for my own company's products, we always test in B&W, to make sure no functionality is lost. Relatedly, does anyone have any links t…

Why go grayscale? Is there any data to support the claims made by the extension? (see below) The extension linked says: > Can't stop surfing the web? You may not realize it, but all of that color is designed to hijack your brain and keep you browsing. > You'll soon find that time wasting sites hold your attention less, and this will hopefully help you focus on whatever it is you really need to be doing.

I hadn't done any scientific studies, just had read about it and decided to give it a try on my phone. It made a difference for me, so I wanted to make something for chrome since as a dev I spend most of my day on there.

I'd say it's worth a try at least to see if you see a difference. It's strange browsing without color, and when you use grayscale and go back to color it almost feels overwhelming.

Here are some articles though that go into it more:

http://www.tristanharris.com/2016/05/how-technology-hijacks-...

https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/02/13/grayscal...

Re: Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

#68

Post by devastora »

brightball wrote: post #39
jedberg wrote: post #26

I love this idea, but sadly it's not for me. I tried this on my phone (going grayscale) and turned it off after 1/2 a day. Too many apps rely on color to differentiate different parts of the app. It definitely gave me a greater appreciation for the plight of the colorblind, and it's why for my own company's products, we always test in B&W, to make sure no functionality is lost. Relatedly, does anyone have any links t…

I just installed it and liking it so far. I had the same issue with the all-or-nothing phone experience because of maps that I use everyday for traffic. I'm liking this so far.

Thanks!

By the way, for the phone thing I had the same issue. If you have an iPhone, you can set it so triple clicking the home button toggles it - https://lifehacker.com/change-your-screen-to-grayscale-to-co...

Re: Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

#69

Post by devastora »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #47

I’ll definitely try it, thanks! I’ve been “on” grayscale on my phone for a few months now and I’ve enjoyed it very much. One “proof” that I have of grayscale’s benefits is that when I switch back to color (which happens at most once every 2 weeks), I find the colors to be extremely (visually) “loud”. Is it reasonable to think that we get desensitized to color, and that using grayscale re-sensitizes us? i.e. can this…

I know what you mean. If I'm good about using the grayscale, when I see a site with color it's almost overwhelming. You get desensitized to all that color.

Re: Show HN: Grayscale the Web – A Chrome extension to help avoid mindless browsing

#70

Post by devastora »

kovrik wrote: post #54

Nice idea! Would be great if it was not just On/Off switch, but one could set timer (per site) and it would gradually desaturate website the longer you stay (1%, 2%, ...). When timer turns 0, then site becomes fully grayscale (100%). When page is closed, then the timer is reset (after the same period of time?).

Thanks!

Originally I was going to implement a slider where you could adjust the amount of grayscale, but wasn't sure if anyone would use it. I really like the idea of having it gradually go gray, I might look into that when I get a chance to work on this again.

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