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/Hel… (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_an… 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_pref… 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(a)gmail.com&gt; 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 > &lt;amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il&gt; 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(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design > > > > _______________________________________________ > Design mailing list > Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design >

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.

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

@jared: I've got two points. 1. Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch screens now.

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.

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.