[Suggestion] Making sure the interface is friendly to colorblind people

from Elemental Forums

Let's start with a small story :

One day, I run Elemental to check on the Beta 1C. As I remember discussion about a new research system, I pick the Kingdom with the research boost, and I go on my merry way researching a bunch of technologies. But how was I to know which technologies were going to be available at the next breakthrough? Simple : some were colored red, some yellow and some yellow.

Err, what?

I was unable to distinguish which technologies were to be always (green) and sometimes (yellow) available. As you can guess from the topic, I am colorblind and thus, I have difficulties distinguishing yellow and light green. Therefore, on quite important piece of information from the research screen is unavailable to me.

 

So what can be done? I am certain that I am not the only colorblind person who is ever going to play this game, but I have no idea what are the problematic colors for the other ones. So simply banning light green and cyan (which I can confuse with white) is not going to help much. Thus here are some other propositions which would help one such as me (ordered from most useful to less) :

  1. Make the information available by another mean than color : Color may be used as the quick way to get the info, but another mean must be presented. Tooltips would be great, and can also be used for more detailed information at the same time.
  2. Do not only vary the hue : It is way easier to distinguish between light yellow and dark green than between light yellow and light green. You do not need to revert to while/grey/black, but light yellow/average green/dark red would work wonder.
  3. Bold text and lines : The thinner the colored text, the harder it is for me to distinguish the colors. So bolded yellow and green are easier to contrast.

 

Note : for some reason, I have no problem with the green text on this forum. But in game, it is amazing how hard it is to me to realize it is not yellow. Is it due to the contrast? Do they have different RGB values? I don't know.

44,559 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, the game could have specific symbols placed in front of the tech name. So when ever the colour of a tech comes into play, so does the symbols.

For instance. I'll be using emotes (whatever they are called) since I lack a prepared set of symbols:

-(a green tech) :frogboy: Farms

-(a yellow tech) :grin: Mines

-(a red tech) }:) Mansions

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I would bug this in the Elemental Beta section actually.

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Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Not color blind myself.  But I support it should be colorblind-friendly!

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

They changed the research interface in beta 1D, so I'm wondering : did they switch to only two (green and red) colouring for the technologies, or is it only me that is unable to make the difference?

If it is the latter, it would invalidate my third suggestion, as now the text is not colored, but its background is. (Although the background colors are quite faint, which is not helping.)

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

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Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Colorblinds are clearly inferior people, cursed by gods, forgotten by evolution - just like left-handed people.

That said, sure, go ahead.

:p

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Wintersong, thanks for the annotated screenshot.

This means that using solid colors didn't help me...