Re: Colors On Web Pages
- From: james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:48:03 -0400
Hi John,
Thanks. With bp, I am using Drupal, a content management system. Once I get
the hang of the system, I may change to a different template. Even then, I
will get sighted help picking the template, but the manus and so on are
easy to do because you just fill in forms and check boxes. You still have
to put the content there, but that gets reduced mostly to composing the
text rather than designing the whole of everything. That lets me
concentrate on catching bad listers. :)
Jim
James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
"Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
"John Greer"
<jpgreer17@hotmai
l.com> To
Sent by: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
programmingblind- cc
bounce@freelists.
org Subject
Re: Colors On Web Pages
10/30/2007 12:34
PM
Please respond to
programmingblind@
freelists.org
But in the case of the original poster, his sighted visitors wanted to see
a
bit of formatting and color on the website instead of the standard blindy
website design of no frame sets, centering etc. That is also why I said,
"It depends on what kind of website you want to make". It would be nice to
hear of a few more blindy websites that are a bit more design oriented than
just the standard that we have all come to know. Nice job by the way on
blind programming.com by the way and Inthane's site is looking better too.
One of the things that my flood of answers refers to is exactly what this
other person has said. There will be times when blind people will want to
create a site where there is a navigation frame on the left and the
background of the frame is in light blue for example. How is a blind
person
that has never seen color before going to know what text color would be
most
visible on a blue background. My later emails with the links to contrasts
etc. are a step to help them with that. I was not trying to say that the
blind web designers need to start putting the entire rainbow of colors on
their websites. But I was saying that if they want a wider sighted
audience
to enjoy their site, they need to break away from the standard heading,
write some text put another heading then an excrutiatingly long list of
links with descriptions. It would be nice to see some of the pages like
that at least have a navigation frame with categories, home, games, scripts
etc. etc. That in fact is not only better for the sighted design side but
also is better for the blind comunity too because then they are not having
to press insert f7 and then arrowing down for a day and a half to find a
link they are looking for. My 3 cents, grin.
JohnPG search for all of your Jaws scripts at http://www.blindcrawler.com/
Also be sure to check out Blind Crawler's Legend of the Green Dragon server
at http://www.blindcrawler.com/lotg/
There will be more to come from Blind Crawler very soon.
Administrator: John Greer
Blind Crawler.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 8:25 AM
Subject: Re: Colors On Web Pages
>
> Hi,
> I ran this by a usability person here. Her comments are above the
original
> text.
>
> I would say it's an accurate description of the meaning and mood of the
> colors he describes.
> But I don't really agree with the advice of using colored text or a
> colored
> background for Web site design. From a usability perspective, the high
> contrast of black text on a white background is the
> best choice. Most sites use color in images, borders, and for some
> headings
> and link text - but typically the main content of the page is black on
> white. Another choice is to have a background
> color on the sides, and a center section (about 2/3 of the page) that's
> white with black text.
> Of course, there are beautiful and easy-to-read sites that use a variety
> of
> colored backgrounds, text, and images. But, that is not something that
> most
> sighted people can achieve. Typically, to do
> a good job with visual design, you need an artist or graphic designer.
> That's my 2 cents!
>
> The first thing to ask is what kind of website are you trying to make.
> What
> kind of website you are trying to put out to the people needs to be a
> determining factor because you wouldn't want a banking website to have a
> red
> background with brite green text. Why you might ask? Because when
people
> are visiting a banking website a rule of advertising for them is they
want
> to come across as secure and stable. So for that most of them will just
> use
> the standard black text on a white background. I am going to try to help
> by
> associating a color with a mood and see if that helps.
> red= A color that is for fun things, like a clown's red nose, a red ball.
> blue = the color of the sky or ocean. Think of how you feel when you
> visit
> either but keep in mind that when in the water although sighted people
can
> see underwater it is a bit hard to see unless you have a mask.
> green = an earthen color, the color of grass, trees etc. Green text
> however
> doesn't work unless you have a dark dark background color. Also for
mixed
> colors like green, blue and yellow make green, it is always a good idea
> not
> to use either color that make up a certain color with the color that they
> make. For example you would not want to have green text on a yellow
> background. That would make things a bit hard to see. You could however
> have yellow text on a blue background. Why you might ask? Because it is
> also another rule of thumb to have either a dark color as a background
and
> a
> light color as text or vice versa.
> Yellow = it is the color of the sun, many times it can be very bright,
> other
> times rather soothing to the eyes again depending on the time of day, and
> its background. You can use yellow as a background color quite
> effectively
> with black text if it is a light but not too bright yellow background.
> Why
> you might ask, just associate yellow as day and black as night. So yes,
> yellow text on a black background will also work.
> black= well for some of us black is probably pretty self explanatory.
> Black
> means no light can pass through. A black background can be used if
> contrasted with a bright color such as yellow, green, red, orange. To
> fully
> understand black you have to also understand the mood associated with it.
> To some black is scary, to some black is also a mysterious color. You
> must
> also understand black in the way that it works in the sense of a computer
> monitor. All televisions and monitors work off of the same principal.
> There are 3 colors that can make every color that is visible on a screen.
> Red, green and blue. The description of how the aliens could see in HG
> Wells' War of the Worlds still amazes me considering when the book was
> actually written. Basically what you have with red green and blue are
> three
> colors that can make any other color when mixed together with varying
> brightnesses. Now back to the black, black on a computer monitor is
> produced when you drop the brightness of all three colors down to zero.
>
> Jim
>
> James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
> james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
>
> "Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the
> world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
>
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