Simon Hearne
Ron Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)Dear twenty-something app developers with perfect eye-sight: Stop putting tiny light grey on dark grey text. Someday you will understand.
Oliver Ghingold@grumpygamer
It's also a WCAG violation, gotta have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 😉
Prof West Wing Chicken Shack@emceebois @grumpygamer Do you believe that these arrogant, know-it-all pricks care about such things?
Do you think that they're even aware of such things?
Ryan Noakes 🇨🇦@garystark @emceebois @grumpygamer if they had any semblance of good education on designing they should at least be aware...
@ryan_noakes @emceebois @grumpygamer
Nope.
They're way too arrogant. Totally unaware.
Way too young; the world revolves around them, you know.
I had to work with one such hotshit. Sorry, hotshot.
He was puzzled by why we needed to run more than one test on the company's online credit card processing interface to the public realm.
Fucking dickhead.
Dag Ågren ↙︎↙︎↙︎@emceebois Note, though, that the WCAG "contrast ratio" is completely unscientific nonsense. It gives you a hint of what kind of contrast you have but it can be also be very misleading.
I hear there's a better contrast measurement on the way, but for now please don't pay too much attention to the old contrast ratio.
@WAHa_06x36
Yeah I wouldn't call green-on-red easy on the eyes but it technically passes the requirement. It's a good starting point though, and makes it very obvious why things like gray-on-gray don't work.
Yeah I wouldn't call green-on-red easy on the eyes but it technically passes the requirement. It's a good starting point though, and makes it very obvious why things like gray-on-gray don't work.
@emceebois I just went to look it up and found this incredible rabbit hole that this one guy fell down while trying to improve it: https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/695
Good news: He spent three years researching it and developed better algorithms that will hopefully be future standards.
Garth Cummings@grumpygamer 3 minutes after they turn 40. Like clockwork.
Sir GarbagetruckI actually made it 5 years after, but boy, has the deterioration been accelerating faster than others who did have it hit at 40...
Kelson's Sorta Old Account@garthc @grumpygamer Yep, almost exactly. Get glasses, increase the font size, all that fun stuff. And hope the designer hasn't counteracted it.
JackBarrowUK@KelsonV @garthc @grumpygamer I've got retinal damage and no amount of focus correction will make it more readable. Better contrast, bigger text is the only way.
CJ Moose ⚒️🌋🦉🍻⛺@garthc @grumpygamer I swear to Dog it was like the day after I turned 40. It's so aggravating!
Zalasur 🐸🇺🇦@grumpygamer I ran across my old website in the internet archives a little while ago. I personally created and designed everything on it while I was in my mid-to-late twenties (this was in the late 90s and early 00s).
I was very happy to discover that the color scheme I picked was not only pleasing to the eye, it also passed AAA accessibility requirements for contrast except for my links. Those were "only" AA-compliant.
John Hannon@grumpygamer for a while there was a UX Group at my work that was supposed to offer “user experience” advice to devs. Their own site was grey/grey tiny font BS
My camera shoots fascistsNo, no, you don't understand! It's because their content and design are so bad that they don't want anyone to be able to read it.
Apparently. Or maybe that was their version of edgy?
Thankfully this trend is dying. But, IDK, about 10 years ago it was all the rage. Even when I had a young person's eyesight it sucked.
Torbjörn Andersson@grumpygamer That's my pet peeve with parts of Steam as well. I hear there are themes, but shouldn't it be easily readable by default?
(Still waiting for the whole dark theme fad to pass. Along with the first person shooter fad. I've been waiting for quite some time now...)
Sedunker@et_andersson Totally with you on this. I see edgy kids like "ew, you're using LIGHT theme?" Kiddos, I have nearsightedness, astigmatism and bifocals, your dark theme gives me a headache. Use what works for you.
Jernej Simončič �@Sedunker @et_andersson I just want configurable UI colours to come back. Been using something like a dark theme since 2003, and had to resort to abusing high contrast themes to set up colours to my liking on recent Windows versions (my preference low contrast bright text on dark background, while every dark theme is either bright white text on black, or barely distinguishable greys, neither of which suit me).
dagnymol@Sedunker @et_andersson I tend to find dark theme gentler, but there has to be contrast
Philip Mallegol-Hansen@Sedunker @et_andersson We always have to have something to have a culture war over.
When it wasn’t light vs. dark it was Windows vs. UNIX-like, or Java vs. C#, or one of a million other things.
It seems like the human default to latch onto something to be tribal over.
When it wasn’t light vs. dark it was Windows vs. UNIX-like, or Java vs. C#, or one of a million other things.
It seems like the human default to latch onto something to be tribal over.
@et_andersson @Sedunker Oh I’m right there with you. I have my computers set to use dark themes after dark, and light themes in the day. That works best for me.
I was trying to suggest that not too long ago (4 years ish?) dark themes were some obscure setting in certain IDEs, and nothing more. All of a sudden the tech work is now “dark everywhere by default”, and I find it yet another amusing example of how we are tribal beings.
I was trying to suggest that not too long ago (4 years ish?) dark themes were some obscure setting in certain IDEs, and nothing more. All of a sudden the tech work is now “dark everywhere by default”, and I find it yet another amusing example of how we are tribal beings.
Jessamyn@grumpygamer Preach. Make your clickable targets more than 30px. Realize that you will maybe get in trouble for all your dark patterns that exploit the least-capable users.
Dawn Tåke 🏳️⚧️@jessamyn @grumpygamer
This is my main complaint with Linux Mint. I should not have to turn the DPs on my mouse down to click the close button.
This is my main complaint with Linux Mint. I should not have to turn the DPs on my mouse down to click the close button.
Richard Hendricks@Tourma @jessamyn @grumpygamer I really hate 1 pixel wide drag bars on window edges. Linux window managers need better accessibility options.
Resuna
Casper 👻
MichaelPhillips@grumpygamer also white text entry boxes on white backgrounds or light gray text on white backgrounds
@MichaelPhillips @grumpygamer And Windows with white backgrounds and no outline so you can't see where the edge is.
@jackbarrow @grumpygamer I really hate whatever point in time it was that the standards of design went to low contrast and no detectable edges
kelleynnn@grumpygamer At least make the page layout adaptable so that it doesn't go to hell when we use ctrl-+ to make it readable.
carol@grumpygamer 💀 Once, one of the software developers of our hospital barcode scanners had the unfortunate luck to be admitted and assigned to me, a 40 year old #RN. I might have shared some strong opinions on text readability. This was especially bad during #Covid with the face shields.
Eirliani A Rahman@carols @grumpygamer Ahaha, love ❤️ it. And thank you!
@grumpygamer Hand-held medication scanner + reading glasses + face shield = unreadable machine = higher error potential, for those of you who are non-medical. Just another fun was #COVID sucked at bedside and impaired safety. And how well-meaning interventions can cause downstream problems.
Unprecedented 2023@carols @grumpygamer Hang in there. 🙏🏼
@Mallulady @grumpygamer Thanks! I ended up leaving the hospital environment, like so many nurses did. Now going really old-school with no medication scanners at all! 😲
Rufus T FireflyFor many years I missed green bar for reading code closely.
Now that I’m over that, they invented dark themes, which I find unreadable.
SuzieQ@grumpygamer YES!!!!!!!!
David Freeman@grumpygamer funny to read this in an app with literally that exact styling
SofaKingHigh@D3codes @grumpygamer just need to enable true black mode, white text on black rack ground all day please.
ChaosAre you using the Mastodon app?
I was JUST thinking "At least it's good on this app, good choice of grey with just not too bright white" .... But then this is what I'm seeing.
What might be the reason for this?
Calavera 🏴
Martijn Frazer@grumpygamer I used to work at an institute for the blind, where they said "everyone becomes visually impaired at one point".
People tend to think of these problems as something that doesn't affect themselves ("they're blind, we're fine"), but that's nonsense. We're just not blind yet.
@Tijn Age is the great equalizer.
DamnKimberlee@grumpygamer perfection. Lol
pseyfert@grumpygamer the online banking (desktop version) of one of my previous banks: light dark gray on dark light gray. Huge line spacing and small font (ie browser zoom to decipherable font would remove most content from the screen). The first screen page filled with ads, every click would trigger a scroll back to top of page, the only error message was "wrong IBAN" regardless of the error (though it did allow me to submit transfers to invalid IBANs)
Scott Graham@grumpygamer Presbyopia and Taxes come for us all.
mrkite@grumpygamer I can't even play RPGs on console anymore because the fonts are too small on 4k.
Nat Weaver 🏳🌈🏳️⚧️@grumpygamer this isn't just a 20-something problem. Older devs do it too. Mostly it is just having a disregard for accessibility. Which a lot of people do, unfortunately.
Accipiter@grumpygamer Mind you, it's how I first noticed my cataracts, so ... nearly helpful?
Likely Jan Lukas@accipiter @grumpygamer I am now imagining thousands of random apps adding claims about eye health diagnostics into their promos. 🤔😬😂
@likelyjanlukas @grumpygamer Well, sure! Except if you needed the notice, you couldn't see it. But that's just quibbling, right?
@accipiter @grumpygamer It's just more proof of the diagnostics feature being superb, amirite???!? 😂
@likelyjanlukas @grumpygamer More proof ... sure. Got it! (Has near fatal eye roll)
BlueDot🇺🇦@grumpygamer THANK YOU.
Prof. G.@grumpygamer - Agreed! I've got a colleague who can't see low & mid-contrast neumorphism, so all those shade-constructed boxes on websites are just invisible to them. Not helpful!
John Wells@grumpygamer Probably has a lot to do with the hardware used for development.
Devs are often running high resolution displays with excellent colors and contrast, but this isn’t representative of the real world. Many real world users will be viewing your app/site/game etc on things like the terrible cheap 1366x768 TN panels built into so many low end laptops.
I’m of the opinion that devs/designers should pick up a used mid-00s TN monitor and regularly test for usability on it to prevent this.
Darrin West@grumpygamer And test your app w the large font OS settings (iOS mastodon)
Pepsilora@grumpygamer At the very least, give us the option to change the damn thing.
Doug BostromAlso itsy-bitsy scroll bars aka "massive time wasters."