Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing exactly what kind of colorblindness, but.. As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted and communicated his problem incorrectly)
You can try yourself with something like this palette comparator: http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however. Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins, font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code. Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
Re: color blindness - To check specific color uses, try these 2 tools http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ e.g. http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?a=1;r=;l=9;j=1;u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help... (and then click the options inside the floating navbox) http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ (upload an image, and then simulate it in 8 types of color blindness)
Tangentially, I compiled a link-dump of all the pages that document or discuss color blindness, at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Accessibility#Colour-blindness_links_and...
Re: an "accessibility pane" - I had a similar thought (and learned about some larger internet projects such as GPII that seek to explore the same), and put some notes at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_prefe... I'll try to find some spare time to whip together a wireframe, later on if nobody beats me to it. :)
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman < d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing exactly what kind of colorblindness, but.. As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted and communicated his problem incorrectly)
You can try yourself with something like this palette comparator: http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however. Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins, font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code. Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may
be
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because
he
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
Another great tool if you are on a Mac is sim daltonism. I have had formal training in accessible web design and I will add that a red/blue color blindness is very very very uncommon. For the mediawiki.ui color palette we specifically chosen colors that are relatively colorblind safe, for common types of colorblindness.
We could shift the link colors to be identical to the mediawiki.ui colors (still red and blue, just different hues and shades) but the strongest rational would be consistency not accessibility as the pair of colors isn't usually a major issue.
https://michelf.ca/projects/sim-daltonism/
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 8:58 AM, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
Re: color blindness - To check specific color uses, try these 2 tools http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ e.g. http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?a=1;r=;l=9;j=1;u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help... (and then click the options inside the floating navbox) http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ (upload an image, and then simulate it in 8 types of color blindness) Tangentially, I compiled a link-dump of all the pages that document or discuss color blindness, at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Accessibility#Colour-blindness_links_and... Re: an "accessibility pane" - I had a similar thought (and learned about some larger internet projects such as GPII that seek to explore the same), and put some notes at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_prefe... I'll try to find some spare time to whip together a wireframe, later on if nobody beats me to it. :) On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman < d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing exactly what kind of colorblindness, but.. As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted and communicated his problem incorrectly)
You can try yourself with something like this palette comparator: http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however. Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins, font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code. Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may
be
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because
he
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
I made a Wireframe mockup of an Appearance and Accessibility pane, to go with the notes, at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_prefe... Feedback appreciated!
I've added the color blindness tools, and a whole new section, at https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/Typo... Hope that's acceptable/tweakable.
(Lastly, I'll point out this colorblind option menu out again, as I find it inspiring: https://imgur.com/a/iBRGY/layout/horizontal#0 I'm wondering if we can do something like that easily with CSS/LESS palette variables? I've tried to search for existing implementations, but didn't have any luck.)
-quiddity
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Jared Zimmerman jzimmerman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Another great tool if you are on a Mac is sim daltonism. I have had formal training in accessible web design and I will add that a red/blue color blindness is very very very uncommon. For the mediawiki.ui color palette we specifically chosen colors that are relatively colorblind safe, for common types of colorblindness.
We could shift the link colors to be identical to the mediawiki.ui colors (still red and blue, just different hues and shades) but the strongest rational would be consistency not accessibility as the pair of colors isn't usually a major issue.
https://michelf.ca/projects/sim-daltonism/
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 8:58 AM, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
Re: color blindness - To check specific color uses, try these 2 tools http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ e.g. http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?a=1;r=;l=9;j=1;u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help... (and then click the options inside the floating navbox) http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ (upload an image, and then simulate it in 8 types of color blindness)
Tangentially, I compiled a link-dump of all the pages that document or discuss color blindness, at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Accessibility#Colour-blindness_links_and...
Re: an "accessibility pane" - I had a similar thought (and learned about some larger internet projects such as GPII that seek to explore the same), and put some notes at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_prefe... I'll try to find some spare time to whip together a wireframe, later on if nobody beats me to it. :)
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman < d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing exactly what kind of colorblindness, but.. As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted and communicated his problem incorrectly)
You can try yourself with something like this palette comparator: http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however. Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins, font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code. Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question
may be
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop
in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links
because he
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
On 09/09/2014 07:55 AM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Besides the hypothetical ideas mentioned, there is the option to add user CSS.
Although not truly user friendly, this is a little easier than it used to be (you can now make personal customizations without copying them to every WMF site). As long as you have a global account (many users do, including most new ones), you just have to go to:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/global.css
You can then add arbitrary CSS rules, e.g.:
/* Red links */ a.new { color: pink; }
which will apply on all WMF sites (it is still possible to add rules that only apply on one site at Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins) or Special:MyPage/vector.css (Vector)).
Matt Flaschen
I'd suggest that something be added in MediaWiki core's Special:Preferences for accessibility options. Color blind correction options could be one thing in there, as well as simple options like larger text, etc just to name some other accessibility options. It surely wouldn't hurt for that to be in core.
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 09/09/2014 07:55 AM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Besides the hypothetical ideas mentioned, there is the option to add user CSS.
Although not truly user friendly, this is a little easier than it used to be (you can now make personal customizations without copying them to every WMF site). As long as you have a global account (many users do, including most new ones), you just have to go to:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/global.css
You can then add arbitrary CSS rules, e.g.:
/* Red links */ a.new { color: pink; }
which will apply on all WMF sites (it is still possible to add rules that only apply on one site at Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins) or Special:MyPage/vector.css (Vector)).
Matt Flaschen
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
On 09/15/2014 10:54 PM, George Barnick wrote:
I'd suggest that something be added in MediaWiki core's Special:Preferences for accessibility options. Color blind correction options could be one thing in there, as well as simple options like larger text, etc just to name some other accessibility options. It surely wouldn't hurt for that to be in core.
Agreed, filed as https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70879 . If you have further suggestions, please add them there.
Matt Flaschen
George, that's exactly what I was mentioning earlier. :) https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_prefe... Feedback welcome!
(Ideally it would Not be in Special:Preferences, but would instead be a menu that all users, even readers who are not logged-in, can use. Saved in cookies/localstorage, if the user isn't logged-in.)
I included "Appearance" as well as "Accessibility", partially because they often overlap, and partially because FLOE and GPII do the same, eg http://www.floeproject.org/prefsEditors.html (both the top-right live-example of "Show display preferences", and the video).
HTH. - quiddity
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:54 PM, George Barnick georgebarnick@gmail.com wrote:
I'd suggest that something be added in MediaWiki core's Special:Preferences for accessibility options. Color blind correction options could be one thing in there, as well as simple options like larger text, etc just to name some other accessibility options. It surely wouldn't hurt for that to be in core.
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Matthew Flaschen < mflaschen@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On 09/09/2014 07:55 AM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Besides the hypothetical ideas mentioned, there is the option to add user CSS.
Although not truly user friendly, this is a little easier than it used to be (you can now make personal customizations without copying them to every WMF site). As long as you have a global account (many users do, including most new ones), you just have to go to:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/global.css
You can then add arbitrary CSS rules, e.g.:
/* Red links */ a.new { color: pink; }
which will apply on all WMF sites (it is still possible to add rules that only apply on one site at Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins) or Special:MyPage/vector.css (Vector)).
Matt Flaschen
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
-- *George Barnick*
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
If possible it would be nice to ask what kind of "color blindness" he has.
Normally color blindness doesn't mean the person cannot see color, but rather that they cannot see certain ranges of colors (depending on which type they have).
As far as color contrast goes we already have enough between the two. In all the normal types of color blindness (protanopia [1% M], deuteranopia [1% M], and tritanopia [<1% M&F), even when you cannot see red the red link is still a different colour from the blue link. The only case where that is not true is full achromatopsia [0.0033%], where the person cannot see any color at all and in high-lighting situations (within the range of normal sunlight) cannot see anything.
((i.e: It would be nice to know if he has achromatopsia or if the problem is not the color contrast itself but a deeper problem with the use of color))
That being said it might be time to have a discussion about how good design does not use color alone to convey meaning. The old preference that replaced redlinks with text followed by a question mark is questionable and did have good reason to be removed (I remember something about it existing because the precursor to MediaWiki and some other wiki engines rendered links that way, but it segmented the parser cache slowing down wikis like Wikipedia and was non-intuitive since while you can tell the difference between a link and a nonexistent page link the only way to get to the nonexistent page is by clicking a single question mark plus you can't tell how much of the text before the question mark is part of the link).
However the idea of displaying extra markup beyond the `new` class in redlinks is a worthy idea. Not as an accessibility preference, but as something that is always on, as accessibility should not be a default off preference. The ideal way to do this would probably be to add an icon to the end of every redlink (maybe with a "page does not exist" alt text, depending on what screen reader flow sounds like). If we can't find a good culturally abstract icon then we could use a circle enclosed question mark and on mouse over even describe what a redlink is and invite the person to start the article.
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]
On 2014-09-09 4:55 AM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
accessibility should not be a default off preference.
Couldn't agree more. There's no need to create a user setting when we could just enable a11y features for everyone. I can't think of examples where making something accessible for, say people with colour-blindness would negatively impact other users' experience.
Quick mockup with exclamation mark for reference: http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
Best, max @awesomephant
On 2014-09-15 11:32 PM, max wrote:
accessibility should not be a default off preference.
Couldn't agree more. There's no need to create a user setting when we could just enable a11y features for everyone. I can't think of examples where making something accessible for, say people with colour-blindness would negatively impact other users' experience.
Quick mockup with exclamation mark for reference: http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
Best, max @awesomephant
My initial idea was something more like this to start with. http://codepen.io/dantman/full/avmyw
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]
Max and Daniel, I think that works when there is 1 link per paragraph, but would be extremely difficult to read in paragraphs with a higher link density, which is the norm on the site.
*Jared Zimmerman * \ Director of User Experience \ Wikimedia Foundation
M +1 415 609 4043 \ @jaredzimmerman http://loo.ms/g0
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:40 AM, Daniel Friesen daniel@nadir-seen-fire.com wrote:
On 2014-09-15 11:32 PM, max wrote:
accessibility should not be a default off preference.
Couldn't agree more. There's no need to create a user setting when we could just enable a11y features for everyone. I can't think of examples where making something accessible for, say people with colour-blindness would negatively impact other users' experience.
Quick mockup with exclamation mark for reference: http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
Best, max @awesomephant
My initial idea was something more like this to start with. http://codepen.io/dantman/full/avmyw
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
@Jared, Good point. Updated version with smaller, grey icons: http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
best, max @awesomephant
Instead of completely new element perhaps we could try something like an alternate underline style?
examples… http://tympanus.net/Development/CreativeLinkEffects/ http://tympanus.net/Development/InlineAnchorStyles/
something as simple as a dotted or dashed underline for red links, BUT! a lot of users have link underlining turned off, so this would likely show only on hover, which is not the end of the world, just something to consider.
*Jared Zimmerman * \ Director of User Experience \ Wikimedia Foundation
M +1 415 609 4043 \ @jaredzimmerman http://loo.ms/g0
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 3:53 AM, max max@koehler-kn.de wrote:
@Jared, Good point. Updated version with smaller, grey icons: http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
best, max @awesomephant
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
@jared:
I've got two points.
1. Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch screens now. 2.The colour red usually means that something's wrong (in our case: a page doesn't exist yet), and so does the "!" icon. "Dotted Underline" on the other hand has no meaning to it, it's super abstract. Users would have to learn what it means by trial and error.
-best, max @awesomephant
exactly. I think that we might be doing too much in the way of a value judgement. I consider a red ink a todo list, or request, not "something wrong" I know the opinions vary here but I'd rather us not swing too far into associating an emotion or value judgment on red links.
*Jared Zimmerman * \ Director of User Experience \ Wikimedia Foundation
M +1 415 609 4043 \ @jaredzimmerman http://loo.ms/g0
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 2:04 PM, max max@koehler-kn.de wrote:
@jared:
I've got two points.
- Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch
screens now. 2.The colour red usually means that something's wrong (in our case: a page doesn't exist yet), and so does the "!" icon. "Dotted Underline" on the other hand has no meaning to it, it's super abstract. Users would have to learn what it means by trial and error.
-best, max @awesomephant
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 2:04 PM, max max@koehler-kn.de wrote:
@jared:
I've got two points.
- Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch
screens now.
Whether or not underlines are shown all the time or on hover is configurable via a preference.
2.The colour red usually means that something's wrong (in our case: a page
doesn't exist yet), and so does the "!" icon. "Dotted Underline" on the other hand has no meaning to it, it's super abstract. Users would have to learn what it means by trial and error.
Adding a ! icon after every redlink would decrease ease of reading for everyone (including the color-blind). Considering that inability to distinguish between red and blue is extremely rare in humans (1:33,000), I think it would make a lot more sense for us to focus efforts on improving our usability for people with poor eyesight (~50% in the U.S.). For example, we have countless instances of showing colored text on a similar-colored background, especially in en.wiki templates. Our perennial obsession with color-blindness is given undue weight by comparison.
Ryan Kaldari
On 09/16/2014 07:42 PM, Jared Zimmerman wrote:
Max and Daniel, I think that works when there is 1 link per paragraph, but would be extremely difficult to read in paragraphs with a higher link density, which is the norm on the site.
Like Ryan, I'm not yet convinced red links are a problem for many users. However, it should be noted that high red link density in a paragraph may be a sign you're mis-linking. Red links themselves are fine, a couple in a paragraph is probably fine. But e.g. five red links in a paragraph would probably be unusual.
Matt Flaschen