Contrasts
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?