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support for the colour blind
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Tinu Moorhsum
Random Events
#1 - 2012-01-13 13:38:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Tinu Moorhsum
the RL person clicking my buttons has a request

He is severely colour blind.... the kind of colour blind (as hard as that might be to imagine for someone who doesn't have this problem) that makes red traffic lights look like they are turned off instead of just red. The problem is... he is literally unable to perceive the colour red..... his eyes and/or brain just can't compute it and the colour red does not exist in his world.

to keep it short and sweet.... I have (we/he... whatever) an alt with perfect probing skills.... an alt like that should make an awesome scout and be able to probe down ships in space in a few scans.... which I (he) can do if he happens to spot the little red box ....

But the little red boxes are nearly impossible for the invisible master behind my mouse to see.... it takes luck or time (a LOT of time... repeat a LOT of time) to see where the little red box is.

let me say that again but more directly ... The colour red is literally next to invisible. it's the WORST colour CCP could have picked for this. The absolute WORST. It's like black on a nearly black background... yes... it's THAT bad.

I don't believe that CCP intended for colour sighted people to have a +98% advantage over the severely colour blind .... so ..... Please please PLEASE .... make the colours of these signatures configurable.... there are many colours that the invisible force behind my mouse can see just fine... just not red.

T-

P.S. in all seriousness.... if CCP wants a severely colour blind person to give feedback on their UI from the "handicapped" perspective then I'm more than willing to help. The little red boxes are a huge disadvantage but not the only thing that doesn't make sense. just evemail me.

T-
Vizvayu Koga
#2 - 2012-01-13 13:54:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Vizvayu Koga
+1
I have mild color blindeness. I can see red but I often confuse it with some tones of green and/or brown. Had to readjust the overview settings, but it would be nice to have more options to configure i.e. how to display the overheated modules and that kind of stuff.
I agree that RED=BAD overall. Better use green/blue/white but not red please Blink
Amaroq Dricaldari
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#3 - 2012-02-02 01:33:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Amaroq Dricaldari
The problem is, for us that aren't colorblind, Red often means 'Enemy'. And thus, when we see red, we automatically recognize it as 'Enemy'. It is a general rule that even EVE has to follow.

But I still support this idea.

This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Tinu Moorhsum
Random Events
#4 - 2012-02-11 14:49:19 UTC
Amaroq Dricaldari wrote:
The problem is, for us that aren't colorblind, Red often means 'Enemy'. And thus, when we see red, we automatically recognize it as 'Enemy'. It is a general rule that even EVE has to follow.

But I still support this idea.



I don't care if you make yours red. My proposal isn't to change the colour scheme for all of eve to something I can see but to allow the user to configure their own colours.

That way you can still have your red but I can change mine to Lime Green or something that shows up better on the black background.

T-
Roelon
The Dark Resistance
#5 - 2012-03-31 07:07:07 UTC
Bump for a MUCH NEEDED and potentially easy fix.

I tried combat scanning today. As red-green color vision deficient (pretty much have no concept of red or green) That was impossible.

I literally spent minutes manipulating the scanner map trying to see the little red square that represents a ship. Had to flip it on-and-off to try and see the movement. Very inefficient in a time-sensitive situation.

I concur with the above poster. Just add a feature that allows the user to change color if they desire. Maybe shape, intensity, blink function, etc. Can't be that hard to implement, and would prove invaluable to a LARGE portion of the playerbase.

Admittedly, I was pretty upset. I'm now limited in-game by my RL "disability" (I hate that term in this context)...

I'm sure that CCP will do something in time. I just hope it comes sooner than later.
Master Tarn
Keeping Up Appearances
#6 - 2012-04-29 15:13:06 UTC
Bump... It would be great to be able to actualy see the results i probe on the system map. The little red brackets are almost impossible to find (red-green color vision deficient).

My corpmates would agree... they would appreciate me not firing on them when they undock from station.
Enemies would disagree since i wouldn't lock them up anymore in my guardian/scimi.

An example for you guys. I see NO DIFFERENCE between these to pictures, they look exactly the same:

http://us.acidcow.com/pics/20090724/8/color_blind_02.jpg

cheers
HARD STEEL
Caldari Capital Construction Company
#7 - 2012-04-29 17:06:39 UTC
is there nothing that can be done at the operating system level to fix this?

I don't want to be negative towards this condition but to me it seems like getting the OS or some piece of software to re-adapt your colors rather than adding support to every game / website might be best for everyone?

ONLY THE HARD.  ONLY THE STRONG.
HARD STEEL
Caldari Capital Construction Company
#8 - 2012-04-29 17:15:53 UTC
After a quick google I found this..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee415219%28v=vs.85%29.aspx "Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations"

So CCP if there isnt a 3rd party solution this worth considering.

Personally though I think there MUST be a operating system level solution, a 3rd party utility or even a directX driver/setting or something that would let you over-ride a color for situations like these

ONLY THE HARD.  ONLY THE STRONG.
Tinu Moorhsum
Random Events
#9 - 2012-04-30 06:14:31 UTC
HARD STEEL wrote:
After a quick google I found this..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee415219%28v=vs.85%29.aspx "Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations"

So CCP if there isnt a 3rd party solution this worth considering.

Personally though I think there MUST be a operating system level solution, a 3rd party utility or even a directX driver/setting or something that would let you over-ride a color for situations like these



I never thought to look for one. good tip. thanks!
RavenTesio
Liandri Corporation
#10 - 2012-04-30 09:47:37 UTC
HARD STEEL the main issue with trying to support an OS solution, particularly when you're talking about DirectX is that we have no control over something that operates at the hardware level.

Trust me being mildly colourblind myself there are many instances where trying to differenciate very bright Yellow / Green (both look Yellow to me) or very dark Red / Green (both look Brown to me) can be an issue at times. Probably some irony I worked as a game environment artist for nearly a decade without anyone noticing lol

There are a few methods to get around this however... the primary method is actually making sure you have your Monitor / VDU Drivers installed so you can use a custom output Colour scheme. Microsoft do provide a few of these for common colourblind types, but not for the extreme cases that we cannot physically test.

Another method is by changing your colour setting via your Graphics Drivers, I know that AMD fully support our accessiblity system for Windows XP, Vista and 7.

This said neither of these solutions are exactly perfect solutions though, because this will cause considerable colour wash that often will actually exasperate the problem from not being able to see something but actually everything ends up looking the same to where you might as well be playing in Greyscale. Those with more mild afflictions (i.e. precise colour wavelengths) this means yes you will be able to see them but not tell the difference as unlike total colourblindness you're not used to the differences in greyscale.

The best solution that we suggest to developers who ask about supporting disabilities, Colourblindness being a very common affliction is to allow user customisation of in-game colour schemes; but also to have very different icons displaying an effect so that the entire game could be played without colour if necessary.

I do agree that CCP might do well to provide some better support for this afflction as it is considerably common.
Tinu Moorhsum
Random Events
#11 - 2012-05-01 07:21:11 UTC
Master Tarn wrote:


An example for you guys. I see NO DIFFERENCE between these to pictures, they look exactly the same:

http://us.acidcow.com/pics/20090724/8/color_blind_02.jpg



Confirmed. These two pictures are identical.
GizzyBoy
I N E X T R E M I S
Tactical Narcotics Team
#12 - 2012-05-01 13:11:01 UTC
watched a thing on horozion on the bbc, "do you see what i see"

there's tribes in Africa that cant pick out different shades of blue, but can see 100 shades more green than we can..

your eyes only start out seeing a few bright colours blue, yellow, red when your born, and you actually "learn" colours as you go along.

its actually really fascinating, more men are colour blind than women, but being colour blind does seem to give people much much better night vision, Like CATs.

anyway some method of possible altering the colours or have some scheme for people who have trouble with certian types of colours would be good...

if your guy cant see red, how does he interpret reds on the overview?


Tinu Moorhsum
Random Events
#13 - 2012-05-01 22:33:38 UTC
GizzyBoy wrote:


if your guy cant see red, how does he interpret reds on the overview?



It would depend on how badly colour blind you were. In my case, if you could look look through my eyes then red would appear as either a dark brown or very dark grey colour to you, if it even showed up at all... in some contexts (depending on light conditions and the background) it's literally like it isn't even there.... for example, in sunny conditions "red" street lights literally look like they're turned off as opposed to red... which means that people in my position "assume" that street lights are "red" if they are "not green/amber".....

Going back to the probing example I started with, what is red on a black background to you would appear, if you looked through my eyes, as a nearly black shade of dark brown on a black background and if it's overlapping (ie. hidden) behind the white of a planet or moon on the EVE screen then you can forget it... i'll literally never find it.... in cases where I can't find the red box after about 15-20 seconds or so of looking for it then I have to "guess" that it's probably hidden behind one of the celestials......and then try randomly to narrow down which one.

Needless to say, it makes probing for ships very frustrating (even, as I said, with a prober who has perfect skills) for the 10 thousand or so colour blind players that must be out there....

If you ask me, CCP would try to fix any other "bug" that affected 10 thousand players... Why not this one?