TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Website readability--blue text? From:Roy Anderson <royanderson -at- IBM -dot- NET> Date:Wed, 19 Aug 1998 03:51:19 -0400
During my first large online help development project, I was surprised
to discover approximately 20% of the entire male population is color
blind. Color blind people can detect varying colors as varying shades
of gray, but reds and greens often pose detection problems for them.
Several employees likened the standard green WinHELP hyperlink to
disappearing ink. Based on context, the color blind people intuitively
knew that I had employed hyperlinks in certain places but they couldn't
see the links.
Two dozen color blind employees participated in hyperlink color tests.
Experiments revealed that all participants easily detected dark blue
hyperlinks, and 16-18 easily detected dark red hyperlinks, too. We
settled on dark blue as the standard hyperlink color for color-impaired
persons. Management dictated that we maintain green hyperlinks as the
standard for the project but agreed to allow color-impaired persons to
modify the WinHELP default hyperlink color on their specific PCs.
After adding a "How to Change the Default Hyperlink Text Color" topic to
the Tips section of the help project, many employees--including a few
women--changed their default hyperlink color to dark blue. Everyone
lived happily ever after.
I, too, have difficulty reading dark red or dark blue text when displayed
against jet black backgrounds.
Good luck. Hope this information helps someone.
Roy
Sella Rush wrote:
>
> Something I expected to see in this thread--but didn't--was the assertion
> that blue is a difficult color for reading. (Although maybe this is so
> commonly known that is doesn't bear discussing.)
>
> One of my classes covered documentation design and included an extensive
> section on the physical aspects of color and vision. Two years later, I'm
> really fuzzy on this (sorry Prof. Williams!) but I'm sure of the conclusion.
>
------------ Snip -------------------
>
> Hopefully someone will offer corrections or alternative viewpoints to this
> position.
>
> Personally, I like a very dark blue, just as a change from black.
>
> Sella Rush
>mailto:sellar -at- apptechsys -dot- com
> Applied Technical Systems (ATS)
> Bremerton, Washington
> Developers of the CCM Database
