# Contrast problem / difficulties reading The Forum



## siares

mkellogg said: ↑
Contrast problems: Please do this:
1. Create a new thread in the C&S forum here.
2. Find everybody who has complained about it in this thread. Invite them to take part in the new thread.
3. Find somebody who knows CSS, a web technology related to HTML.
4. Have that person figure out what to change to make it easy to read.
5. Let me know the results and I will create a new "style" based on it that you can choose to use.


----------



## mkellogg

Well, that is a start.   I'll give a little more information.

The main CSS properties that you are interested in are:
color - This changes the text color.  For most text it is set in (.body) as nearly black.
background-color - This changes the background color. Currently set as "rgb(252, 252, 255)" in .pageContent and .primaryContent and a few other places.


----------



## siares

Contrast
This is a website where one can copy a link, choose specific colour-blindness, and then view The Forum as it appears to differently colour-blind people.
This is what the thread Welcome to.. probably looks like to Jean de Sponde (who is talking about tritanopia in his post).
This website leads to some tools but not sure how they are copyrighted.

Glare
I tried out all the colour-blind versions of the Forum, and for me, they are much less blinding than the normal version.
I might be tempted to view forums through that filter, but one cannot browse within there. For the moment, whenever possible, I use Mozilla with background colour set to black.
Quote from that site: The brighter the colors, the more mental energy they will consume.


----------



## siares

jann said:


> Interim suggestion:  *try reducing the brightness settings on your display a couple of notches *when you're using WR.
> 
> I don't mean that to sound flip or tongue-in-cheek: dimming your screen will cut back the bright whites, and that may help, especially on modern flat-screen monitors and laptop screens. Laptops usually make it very easy to dim the display -- there will be a Fn-activated key -- with the added benefit that your machine will run cooler (a plus in warm summer weather) and your battery will last longer between charges.


----------



## mkellogg

Siares, we aren't getting much help from others.

What works for you: black letters on a white background?


----------



## siares

No, that is too great a contrast/ glare and tires my eyes out. Mid-grey on black seems to be the best.
But I don't have any difficulties with current Forum's lack of contrast /with reading blue on blue.
Anyone requiring greater contrast is likely to have different ideas from me, who requires less glare.

Many thanks for addressing this, Mike.


----------



## mkellogg

Well, let's wait till we hear more from people who do have a problem with the current forum's lack of contrast.  Anybody?


----------



## EStjarn

siares said:


> 2. Find everybody who has complained about it in this thread. Invite them to take part in the new thread.



I found this in the Welcome to the new forum software thread:


Lurrezko said:


> Could you please darken somewhat this blinding baby blue?



I second Lurrezko's suggestion. I don't see the present blue that separates posts as blinding precisely, but I feel it makes the divisions indistinct. It's as though the posts were trying to merge into a super-post and were on the verge of succeeding.

I don't have "perfect pitch" when it comes to colors, so I can't say for sure what color might be better than the present one. Indeed, I can't say with certainty that _any_ color would be better. But as a test I would suggest trying the blue in the menu on which is presently written in white "Mark Forums Read", "Search Forums", "Watched Forums", "My Threads", "Watched Tags" and "New Posts".

(By the way, the white font color in that menu is difficult to read.)


----------



## osa_menor

Hola Mike,

an information, that is important to me is date and time of a post. Those are in (very little) gray letters on white background at the end of the post.



 

I'd prefer a more visible date on top of every post.
Besides, I liked the signatures, there were a lot of nice ones. But at present reading the signatures is too tiring for my eyes.

Un saludo.


----------



## EStjarn

mkellogg said:


> 2. Find everybody who has complained about it in this thread. Invite them to take part in the new thread.


I think I have found everyone who has expressed in the two major threads about the new forum software either explicit or implicit concern regarding the contrast. Through the Alerts feature, the quotes serve as invitations to take part here. Some members have been quoted more than once so as to help find their posts on the topic.


machokrap said:


> I don't like the new style at all, too bright and there is not enough contrast.





Necsus said:


> I agree. It is hard to read words that are not in bold.





Necsus said:


> For instance on the forums main page I can barely read words as "Discussions", "Messages" or "Today at".





ajo fresco said:


> I'm having a tough time reading the pale blue and gray text against the white background.





Spongiformi said:


> The colours are kind of washed out, lacking contrast, which makes it a bit hard on the eyes.





velisarius said:


> I'm having a lot of trouble reading the posts, especially anything in italics.





4elsik said:


> [At machokrap's comment] Agreed.





Spongiformi said:


> My problem is with some of the text, such as the post and thread dates, which are dimmed.





JamesM said:


> I'd like to see the dividers between posts be darker, too. It's almost as if you're looking at a color printout of WordReference that has faded in the sun.





broglet said:


> Readability is a big problem with this new platform. The use of tiny pale fonts against pale backgrounds is ridiculous.





Wordsmyth said:


> I agree that font colour, size and contrast could do with some improvement for some of the elements of the new interface.





berndf said:


> Well, I guess that is fashion.





broglet said:


> I am amazed that whoever designs these sites does not understand that the prime requirements are: 1 readability and 2 user-friendly layout





JeanDeSponde said:


> I concur with those who said that this new forum is very hard (and painful) to read.





JamesM said:


> This is an important part of UI design that is often ignored. Add to that the need for older eyes to have greater contrast and I'm with JeanDeSponde.





JeanDeSponde said:


> My avatar was Pooh. I will have to change it to Eyesore [pun intented]. . .





KaRiNe_Fr said:


> [At a comment by JeanDeSponde] This is so true!  Not to mention the part about aging eyes and alcohol effect!





tilt said:


> Alternating 2 background colors for the list items would make them easier to read





Lurrezko said:


> Could you please darken somewhat this blinding baby blue?





petit1 said:


> Ce bleu très clair est extrêmement fatigant pour les yeux.





Wordsmyth said:


> A case in point is the menu bar at the top of this page. I find 'Forums' (black on light blue) much easier to read than 'Mark Forums Read', etc (white on light blue).





Gemmenita said:


> . . .I think if a color has to be darkened, that would be mainly the _border line_ which separates two posts inside each thread. It is too light and at first sight when we open a thread, we see texts and texts and texts, therefore difficult to distinguish posts.





gengo said:


> I find it somewhat difficult to distinguish between the bold and non-bold fonts. [...] I would prefer a greater contrast, by color, degree of boldness, etc.





Dopplereffekt said:


> In my opinion the light bluish color makes it a little harder to read through the forums and tell sections/ posts apart.


----------



## siares

No pressure, Mike 

Amazing job, EStjarn.


----------



## JamesM

So, here is one clear example where I encounter trouble:




JeanDeSponde said:


> My avatar was Pooh. I will have to change it to Eyesore [pun intented]. . .



The soft blue bolding of Eyesore on top of the soft blue background actually makes the word less visible to me rather than drawing attention to it.

I found a tool that shows what this site looks like with various vision problems.  I'm not sure if it helps others or not, since I myself have some color deficiency and don't know if I see the same thing you do.  Obviously, I can at least identify blue from not-blue.   Nevertheless, I think it's clear that the overall contrast has dropped when you look at these samples below.

Here's what that blue-on-blue bolding looks like with the "color-blind" filter on:





I've uploaded a snapshot of the Spanish-English section on the main page from the old forum here with the "Color-blind" filter on the page:





Compare it to this view of the new forum, same section, same filter:





Is that helpful, @mkellogg ?  That's a sincere question.  I don't know if this is the kind of information that helps or just muddies the water.  I'm using a Chrome extension called Spectrum, if you want to give it a try.


----------



## mkellogg

Thanks, everybody.
EStjarn, thanks for the big list of quotes. That helps.
James, that helps some, but specific complaints about specific words that are hard to read are better for me.

I just spent some time creating a new "High Contrast" style. Please go to the bottom left corner of the page here, click on WR Style and choose High Contrast.  Let me know what is still a problem and if any of the changes don't help.


----------



## JamesM

Wow!  That's a huge improvement, at least for me. I think I'll stick with that style from now on.  The only thing I would add, on first glance, is an underline below linked words to make them stand out.  Otherwise, it's a massive improvement, in my opinion.


----------



## mkellogg

Good!  I just added underlines to links in messages.


----------



## Peterdg

Woow! I don't have eye problems with the original style, but I like this style more!!!! It's indeed easier to read.


----------



## Necsus

mkellogg said:


> I just spent some time creating a new "High Contrast" style. Please go to the bottom left corner of the page here, click on WR Style and choose High Contrast.  Let me know what is still a problem and if any of the changes don't help.


 Much much better, Mike, thanks!
I have perhaps some trouble yet in distinguishing the pink/light blue headings of quotations, but that is a minor problem in my opinion.


----------



## osa_menor

Muchas gracias, Mike!

The High Contrast style is a big improvement.


----------



## Wordsmyth

mkellogg said:


> Good! I just added underlines to links in messages.


 Could we have that in the 'WR style' as well, Mike?

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Excellent work by EStjarn in #10. Just to put one of my quoted points in perspective, I mentioned the menu bar just as an example of a general point about light text on a light background. As I said in the follow-on comment, I wasn't particularly bothered about a few short labels, so I wouldn't put that high on any hit-list. 





Wordsmyth said:


> A case in point is the menu bar at the top of this page. I find 'Forums' (black on light blue) much easier to read than 'Mark Forums Read', etc (white on light blue). OK, for tab titles of a couple of words each it's no big deal, but I'd find whole sentences in those colours very tiring to read.



Ws


----------



## mkellogg

Necsus said:


> I have perhaps some trouble yet in distinguishing the pink/light blue headings of quotations, but that is a minor problem in my opinion.


Can you explain better?  For instance, in the quote immediately above this sentence, where is it pink or light blue?



Wordsmyth said:


> I mentioned the menu bar just as an example of a general point about light text on a light background.


I just darkened the background. Is that good?


----------



## Wordsmyth

mkellogg said:


> I just darkened the background. Is that good?


I think it's a touch better. As I said, for short tab labels, it's not really a problem.

Thanks, Mike

Ws


----------



## EStjarn

Thank you for the new style, Mike. I agree with the others that it increases readability.

I also feel that the divisions between posts are clearer now; no darker color is necessary. Those divisions are more stylish in the WR style because of the extra thickness, but that, of course, has little to do with readability.

Regarding the white text against the blue background in one of the menus (mentioned above by Wordsmyth and myself), I notice at a 500% magnification that the font has a shadow, and I believe that has a blurring effect on the text. No other font, as far as I can tell, has a shadow.


----------



## Wordsmyth

EStjarn said:


> I also feel that the divisions between posts are clearer now; no darker color is necessary. The greater thickness of those lines in the WR style is more stylish, but that, of course, has little to do with readability.


 I can see that the WR Style and the High Contrast style are both going to have their fans. I prefer the thicker blue post-separators of the WR Style: when I scroll up and down a thread, I can see the post dividers more easily than with the thin black line. Still, as long as we have the choice, everyone should be happy.

On a general note, I probably don't qualify as a 'need more contrast' user. Back before the migration to XF, after trying out the test forum, I did comment that the XF interface gave me problems in high ambient light (daylight) conditions at normal screen-tilt angles. But now that I've been using it for a while, that doesn't seem to be a problem any more. I guess that, for me, it wasn't so much an optical issue as a need for the brain to interpret the unfamiliar. (It reminds me of when I switched from a CRT monitor to a TFT screen. For a few days, it was awful: everything seemed blurred. Once my brain had learned to interpret dots instead of lines, I tried a CRT screen again: it was awful!)

Ws


----------



## Necsus

mkellogg said:


> Can you explain better?  For instance, in the quote immediately above this sentence, where is it pink or light blue?


Well, (salmon) pink is around "Necsus said" ('mkellogg' here), and light blue around the informations about every member (not in your case): 'location & native language'. But I suppose it is just a matter of habit.


----------



## mkellogg

EStjarn said:


> I notice at a 500% magnification that the font has a shadow, and I believe that has a blurring effect on the text. No other font, as far as I can tell, has a shadow.


You are quite observant, EStjarn. I just got rid of text shadow in a number of places in the navigation at the top of the page. The text is a bit crisper now.


----------



## siares

Less glare in Chrome:


JamesM said:


> a Chrome extension


Thanks to this I discovered another Chrome extension called Care Your Eyes.
It works very well for reducing brightness. I am writing this on dark grey forum, where the previously baby-blue quotes show as brown.
It is also possible to customize this. All the buttons are visible. Smilies too.


----------



## osa_menor

Hello Mike,
with the new High Contrast style there is a problem in the little black pop up box one get by clicking on a username. Some of the words now are in black letters on a black background .


----------



## JamesM

Good catch, osa_menor.  I see that (or rather, don't see that  ).


----------



## mkellogg

They used gray text on both a light and a dark background!?  That isn't very smart.  I've just changed the text to white.  Let me know if you see that in other places.


----------



## Peterdg

Hi Mike, 

Now most is visible in the high contrast style: only "Senior Member", just under the username, is still black on a black background. (It's also difficult to read in the normal style by the way).


----------



## mkellogg

Thanks. I got Senior Member fixed.


----------

