o1bigtenor via Dng said on Thu, 20 Jan 2022 07:03:27 -0600


>AIUI there are not only different forms of color blindedness but also
>different levels. Putting that all together means a very large amount
>of complexity.
>
>Likely an easy path to avoid most difficulties - - - use only strong
>primary colors - - - does that solve the possible issues - - - nope
>but those that are color blind have learned to cope with those specific
>issues (I'm thinking of red like in stop lights).

As a guy with vision correctable to 20/50 at best, I have a dog in this
fight. The initial theme should:

1) Be readable by anyone who can see at all.

2) Make it trivial for anybody to create, edit or change themes.

The preceding two rules would make certain that nobody is presented
with a buried shovel in which if they could read the print, they could
change the config, and if only they could change the config, they could
read the print. 90+% of users will immediately change their theme to
something prettier and less stark. The visually handicapped could copy
the initial theme to their own theme and modify as necessary.

I'm not color blind, but I have a pretty good idea how to make things
legible to color blind people: Always have either very dark print on
very light background, or very light print on very dark background.
This way, the color blind person can discern by light and dark, not
color on color. Also, NFT (No Friggin Transparency).

For people like me with poor visual acuity, the following are
important in the initial theme:

* Bigtime contrast. No dark violet on dark blue, or darker violet on
dark violet.

* Big print. Minimum 12 point, 14 point is better.

* No Friggin Transparency! Transparency is the kiss of death for those
with low visual acuity.

* Startlingly different window decoration for the window with focus, as
opposed to the windows without focus. I think very light gray
background titlebar for unfocused and very dark blue titlebar for
focused would be perfect. Obviously, make the titlebar text
contrast starkly with the titlebar background. Also, adding a
couple pixels to the window border helps those with low vision know
where the window ends and something else begins. You haven't lived
until you look at a screen and can't tell which window has focus.

Are my suggestions ugly? Most people think so. But please remember the
vast majority will immediately switch to a theme more visually pleasing.

True story...

There was once a Linux project called Gobo Linux, with a packaging
scheme I would have preferred to any existing. As with MS-DOS, each
application had its own directory tree. That's how I like it --- screw
LFS. I was starting to test it, but there was only one thing wrong: The
terminal text was about 7point, dark blue on dark purple.

I asked them to change it and they said "no problem, you change it at
the Grub prompt." So I tried, but they'd set the console font to about 6
point gray on black. I asked them to change the console font and they
said I should change it, even though it was clear I couldn't change
what I can't read.

I was going to publish good stuff about the Gobo project on
Troubleshooters.Com. Several projects have been very glad to get
publicized on Troubleshooters.Com, but I guess these guys couldn't be
bothered either to make it usable for me or make it usable for those
with poor eyesight. I never publicized them. As far as I can tell, their
mailing list stopped functioning in November 2019, and today their IRC
channel has eight people. But they stuck by their guns and kept their
"viewable by GenZ only" interface. Oh well.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques