I have been going nuts trying to read some blogs unless I do so using my news reader. Heck, I was having trouble reading my own dang blog LOL. Actually this is not really funny. What I figured out real quick – the DUH factor – was that the text and background colors I had were hard for me to read. For the past 6 months the evil optic neuritis deal has been going on with my left eye – big time.
So when I changed my blog theme when the last WordPress made my old theme obsolete I started playing with text and background colors. It is obvious to me that certain color and text combos are horrid when it comes to the readability factor. I started out with basic shades of gray and have been working on it hoping to come up with something that is not only easier to read but with the potential to eventually not be boring. I know – it is rather drab at the moment but I can read it!
The second thing I noticed is that long paragraphs frustrate the heck out of me. I loose track of where I am reading, and honestly my pea brain can not process big chunks of type. I gotta break it down into smaller blocks. Not so easy when I loose my place in a long paragraph. Breaking up text into smaller paragraphs is a good thing – really it is.
While beautiful blog themes are great eye candy they really do put some folks at a disadvantage. Just like videos without captioning suck for those with hearing problems. I know there are Windows setting to use high contrast, and Firefox has compatibilities also but I freaking hate setting those up and detest missing out on some really nice artistic blogs and sites. Some people spend a lot of time tweaking on their themes and why should I miss out? I love eye candy.
The W3C has recommendations on the color contrast levels for the visually impaired and color selection (for colorblindness). They even have a nifty formulas:
Colour brightness is determined by the following formula:
((Red value X 299) + (Green value X 587) + (Blue value X 114)) / 1000
The difference between the background brightness, and the foreground brightness should be greater than 125.
Color difference is determined by the following formula:
(maximum (Red value 1, Red value 2) – minimum (Red value 1, Red value 2)) + (maximum (Green value 1, Green value 2) – minimum (Green value 1, Green value 2)) + (maximum (Blue value 1, Blue value 2) – minimum (Blue value 1, Blue value 2))
The difference between the background color and the foreground color should be greater than 500.
It leaves me wondering why as a group MSr’s tend to have visual problems yet many of the blogs out in cyber-land whose target audience is primarily those with MS are using combos that are so dang unreadable?
My little box the about me section is a major bomb is the markup department umm . …
Here is a favorite of mine I found surfing the net. The White House home page. If you scroll all the way down to the very bottom in small light gray letters (under the www whitehouse come link) it the link to a discussion on LOL accessibility.
What say you?
I don’t have a visual impairment (other than getting old), but I think your blog is very pleasing to look at and easy (for me) to read. There’s not a lot to distract the reader from the content, which is as (I think) it should be. I find that webpages with bright colors, low contrast, tiny type, and lots of moving gadgets make it hard (for me) to focus. But that’s just me. : )
I agree about all the moving gadgets. Some of the scrolling statistical widgets distract me even if I am not looking at them – I find myself forgetting what I am doing. Not sure if that makes sense? But I just zone out.
Tiny text like light gray on gray takes to much effort – I am to lazy to zoom in or over ride the sites color scheme so I usually end up not reading it.
Ok, ok, I’m a chief offender on the low contrast and actually was thinking about that when I tweaked my theme. And, yes, at one time I analyzed web sites for compliance with selected W3C and section 508 guidelines :0
Oh, make us do math, eh? Alrighty. So, I converted the Blogger Hex code to RGB and then whipped out a spreadsheet. I passed the brightness formula (156) but failed the contrast (464) which didn’t surprise me.
Why do we do this? We probably tend to do what works for us. I sometimes get migraine style headaches on the drill-side of my head. I’m rather sensitive overall to sound and brightness. You know those black or purple sites with the white text? Well, they practically start a myoclonic jerk session for me. However, I know a migraine-gal who says that’s what works best for her. Go figure.
I have the brightness turned down on my computer and don’t go to those sites except to comment. I use my reader a lot. Tried Opera for a while with stripping the style off but that’s a bit much. So, I guess I chose low contrast because it works for me. Maybe I should use some black text. That wouldn’t tweak me out too much. Should probably get rid of the rotating photo slideshow…come to think of it, I really hate moving objects on other sites…
Thanks for raising a good issue.
I agree that we probably most site designs are based on what works for us. I have to close my left eye to read black text on bright white backgrounds. So I use off white or slightly gray.
I can do white text on black but pink text on purple – forget it. I stick to the news reader on those site that use those choices.
Now would not be the time to tell you there is a add on for firefox that checks the site for you like the W3C validations??? I am still wondering if redoing my about me widget is worth passing the css tests.
Gosh you forced me to look up myoclonic.
Now is a great time to recommend the Firefox add-ons. I’ve been unhappy with Chrome, wanted to de-googleize a bit and just needed an excuse. I imported my bookmarks, have installed a couple add-ons, and I like.
Oh, and I discovered the WCAG Contrast Add-on that analyzes all sorts of color contrasts without having to do the math :0
I’m open to specific input for my site. Although I really like the stream pic which I realize presents issues.
I darkened some of the text a bit. The add-on says I’m legit. But I think there’s a problem with the link color not differentiating clearly from the main text color. Tried to darken the link color or make it more green. The combo then reminded me of Christmas and I wanted to crawl under the bed and hide.
I’m digressing now. Shoot me an email if you have some input.
Finding a theme that is not generic and boring that can pass the WC3 validations and then tweaking the CSS to get good contrast is time consuming and rather frustrating.
I have been playing with Feedly that spiny tim recommended. It really does what it says but it’s total integration with google brings out the big brother paranoid bug in me.
Content really is king, and WP offers so many free, highly legible text-oriented themes that do a great job of rendering readable content– explore the possibilities! I think bloggers are adjusting themselves to a new, punchier style of communication that includes shorter paragraphs and eye-relaxing white-space. A very interesting topic to the neuro-tweaked such as ms folks, thank you for talking about it.
Howdy and thank you for commenting! Your right there are a lot more themes available out there that focus on white space and accessibility.
WordPress appears to be ahead of most (IMHO) in offerings.
I browsed your site and enjoyed. Nice integration of the social media sites – I so am in the dark ages on that one! Maybe it is to hard for me to keep track of them all.
SM integration provided by various WP plugins– all automatic! http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
Also, try Feedly extension for Firefox– it lives on top of Google feed reader and is easy on the eyes.
I am trying out the Feedly extention. I have been using FriendFeed. I really need to clean up my google reader and update who I am following.
Feedly looks very promising – thank you for the info.
As you said it really is easy on the eyes. I am definitely go to play around with it.
Hi Jan, I understand about the ON thing. Some blogs are difficult to read, and some are just too hard and I have to skip them until my ON abates, which it does from time to time. Yours is easy to read.
I try to keep my paragraphs in check, ’cause I’m totally with you on the run on paragraph thing; they are just too difficult to track!
I use colors on my blog. I think there’s enough contrast, but if not YOU let me know and I’ll make it darker for you. I will respond to suggestions by my peeps (like YOU!), but I will NOT do any math or any other geeky stuff to figure it out for myself. I have to draw the line somewhere. I also say under my picture in the upper right that if you want the font size bigger just hit Cont + a time or two or three. M’kay?
What no math LOL! Geeky?
Yep if I go directly to your blog I hit the + + + + tee hee
I usually use the news reader and do appreciate the smaller paragraphs.
Color use is a great way to make a statement, express yourself, and make your blog unique. We all get to choose what is right for ourselves – me I like lighter post backgrounds and darker text cause right now it is easier for me to read.
My blog flunks the WC3 XHTML markup because of my little widget “about me” plugin that I use. Since I do not think it is a big deal I still use the plugin and the css bombs big time. Does this make it hard to read? No but is a bad thing really.
My ON has toasted my left eye for 6 months now so I am thinking it is here to stay this time. I go back to the eye doc on the 1st. It is what it is.
Top be compliant or not to be?
When I was in high school, we wrote all our papers for senior comp on a computer system called “The Writer’s Workbench.” It would analyze spelling, grammar, and complexity of what was written. Run on sentences and long paragraphs would increase the complexity score, which had to fall within a certain range to be acceptable. I remember constantly being dinged for long paragraphs and use of the passive voice. Dammit! Let me rephrase that. I remember having issues with long paragraphs and overuse of the passive voice.
I also remember original HTML guidelines cautioning against formatting to a particular screen size and layout. The idea was that people with visual disabilities would be viewing the page at much lower resolutions to make the text larger, and they may even be overriding the fonts to make them more readable. Just try to look at a website at 640×480 these days.
-steve
We had pencils and paper or typewriters. In 1974 I attended a special summer program for high school students at Chico State and played with the computer there. It took up a large area in the building wing it was so large. I played Whumpus a lot.
Now they have so many guidelines . … I liked the basic web page HTML simple – now it can take hours to find one space in the php code. I have not the patience or concentration anymore.
I had the opposite problem in school. I was not creative. I hated the essay assignments “what you did this summer” YUK! I wrote concise technical and hated touchy feel-ee writing.
Thank goodness my parents always drug us to museums and we always had at least one tour of a factory or some sorts. At least I could go into the details of how they built airplanes or made cheese.
OMG, I am sooo lost. I have NO IDEA what you guys are talking about and I, burp-drama student, hate math (’cause Iit hurts my shrinking brain) but you sure got me thinking. Right now, without peeking, I have no clue what colors I use…green in there..a widget that moves? Not sure..I usually write off blog and read in morning, see typos, fix, and leave, checking in occasionally to release comments. While I DO consider my challenged readers, my bff tells me he can fix it on HIS computer just as he wants for reading, so I have let it go at that. Now I will have to think. (dang you!) I never really visit blogs to see beauty..except one..well, maybe two (but neither MS blogs), just read…I better get back to A Stellarlife and see how I fail. (PS, you know this is tongue in cheek and great info you gave here!)