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Show HN: Automatic detection of non-colorblind safe colors

by gka on 2/9/18, 10:59 AM with 29 comments

• by bbarn on 2/9/18, 3:13 PM

  Really cool. I showed the a11y geeks in our design group this and they're already thinking about approaches they could take to embed this into the CI process for our UI libraries.

• by robbrown451 on 2/9/18, 3:46 PM

  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.

• by tofof on 2/9/18, 5:10 PM

  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.

• by jaysonelliot on 2/9/18, 10:29 PM

  Excellent tool. Our organization is AAA compliant with the ADA section 508 (details for anyone who needs them: https://www.section508.gov/content/build/website-accessibili...), and color is a major issue.

  One suggestion for designers & developers who need to be ADA-compliant: part of the spec is the level of contrast between different colors. We currently use WebAIM to check our color contrast: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

  I'd recommend looking at the contrast levels needed to achieve ADA compliance, or any other compliance needed depending on the regulations in various countries, to make it easy for designers & devs.

• by mmjaa on 2/9/18, 4:16 PM

  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 vendors, asleep at the wheel, not caring too much about this on the OS level any more. We've moved on and its all web now, I guess.

  I say this, as my first thought while reading this article was "surely this is just a hash-table away from being applicable everywhere ..." ..

• by mkempe on 2/9/18, 7:10 PM

  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.

• by george_perez on 2/10/18, 12:34 AM

  FYI, you should reissue your certificate. Chrome 66 is already blocking it (because of the Symantec fiasco). https://i.imgur.com/dWqeK74.png

• by aaossa on 2/9/18, 3:48 PM

  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 topic, but I'm not very informed)

• by snissn on 2/9/18, 3:52 PM

  Would love for someone to do a similar analysis on the Overwatch colorblind modes (and why they don't work and Blizzard needs to improve them)

• by relaunched on 2/9/18, 8:07 PM

  This is a very informative and well structured post. The clarity of thought and experimentation methods that led to the final solution was a pleasure to read.

  Also, the problem space is one that I haven't thought about, but probably should. After all, accessibility should be important to all of us.

• by nix0n on 2/9/18, 3:58 PM

  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?