Text, backgrounds, and limited vision

[oggbashan]

At present, I hope temporarily, I have limited vision which explains some (but not all) of the typos in my stories.

Today I received an email from a local Nature Group which linked to their Autumn newsletter. But even enlarged I couldn't read it because the text was on blocks of colour for effect. The text was lost in the colour. I wrote back to the Secretary who responded within minutes with a plain bare text, black on white.

But it highlights a problem that many of us don't even think about. My problem with text on a coloured background affects many people who would not be described as blind or even partially sighted. The RNIB estimates that is affects 50% of all people over 80 years of age.

Literotica's style for stories causes no problems. It is clear and not on a background. But if you are designing your own website, think about those like me who cannot see as well as most.

 

[rescatooor]

To be honest, my aunt of 70+ years of age doesn't really even know how to turn on a computer. I was explaining her the idea behind CapsLock today. It's a very niche market, creating websites for anyone her age or older. And really she has no interesting in reading at all: she just wants to listen to a certain radio channel.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmmm... my problem is a little different, I have switched when I'm writing to a dark gray background with black letters. A white background is just too bright and yes I have dimmed by monitors. Yet if you looked at my wallpaper, which rotates to a different one each time I boot my machine up, they are all dark, dark, dark.

Lit doesn't have a dark mode(on the BB side) and the one extension I have doesn't understand some of the things that are going on in on lit and stuff disappears.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

It's not just the over-80s it affects - many people have problems with certain coloured backgrounds - anyone colour-blind for example, migraine sufferers, some autistic people, some dyslexic people...

Good practice is for websites to offer different text/background options or at least not hard-code the colours so that someone can change the site into their own preferred colours.

And not to use text that's actually images, and to provide alt-text for all images.

Anyone going to the effort of making a website wants the maximum number of people to engage with it, surely?

 

[rescatooor]

It's not just the over-80s it affects - many people have problems with certain coloured backgrounds - anyone colour-blind for example, migraine sufferers, some autistic people, some dyslexic people...

Good practice is for websites to offer different text/background options or at least not hard-code the colours so that someone can change the site into their own preferred colours.

And not to use text that's actually images, and to provide alt-text for all images.

Anyone going to the effort of making a website wants the maximum number of people to engage with it, surely?

Except a lot of people don't make their own websites. Either they use something like Squarespace (like I do) and just do try to modify it to look special and not like a webstore for bourgeoisie watches, or they have someone else do the website for them.

Most businesses do have a target audience. I would bet that none of the websites I have worked on (and I just work with the copy) really concern themselves with reader accessibility. And if they don't care, I doubt the coder/designer will either.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hmmm... my problem is a little different, I have switched when I'm writing to a dark gray background with black letters. A white background is just too bright and yes I have dimmed by monitors. Yet if you looked at my wallpaper, which rotates to a different one each time I boot my machine up, they are all dark, dark, dark.

Lit doesn't have a dark mode(on the BB side) and the one extension I have doesn't understand some of the things that are going on in on lit and stuff disappears.

Something like this?

If so, you can do that in the browser settings. On Firefox I did this:

Firefox - Preferences

scroll down to "Language and appearance"

Select "Colors"

Pick the colours I want for text, background, and visited/unvisited links

Change the "override the colours specified by the page" pull-down from "never" to "always"

In the same place, you can set preferred fonts and font sizes. I think most recent browsers have similar options.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Something like this?

If so, you can do that in the browser settings. On Firefox I did this:

Firefox - Preferences

scroll down to "Language and appearance"

Select "Colors"

Pick the colours I want for text, background, and visited/unvisited links

Change the "override the colours specified by the page" pull-down from "never" to "always"

In the same place, you can set preferred fonts and font sizes. I think most recent browsers have similar options.

Actually one shade lighter of gray. Thanks, but I use Brave a Chromium knockoff. But it doesn't report what you do to the world.

Those options aren't available.