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So, as a disclaimer, I'll admit that my vision isn't what it was when I was 20-something. (Duh!) But, all of you UI/UX architects/designers/developers (and paying Clients of those folks!) please hear me out:
I'm going to start with a simple example of what is a) very common, and b) crappy design. I went to the website of a well-known medical services provider, whose identity will remain undisclosed, using their otherwise very-well-designed IOS app. I browsed to some of my own relevant patient history information, and was presented with a page of very tiny font, expressed in a light blue on white background - TOTALLY UNREADABLE! And to add insult to injury, there was no ability to ZOOM the page content!! What CRAP!
Of course, I've sent a complaint to the appropriate "customer service" people; I don't expect anything to change anytime soon, so for now, I use a desktop browser to access the info. But it occurs to me that the one basic readability issue still exists: light blue on white! "Turn on high-contrast mode" you say... uh huh, ask anyone who's putzed with that for any length of time how well that works! BLECH!
What we need is some recognition that visual contrast is IMPORTANT for avoiding fatigue, and that being CUTE with fonts and color schemes is doing your customer a disservice! Knock it off!
And a suggestion for BROWSER designers/devs: I want a browser-level feature to allow me to specify a HARD OVERRIDE of font and background parameters in any webpage's CSS that I access. We need to provide user-level control over visual accessibility. Ya, I know this is a challenge - I'm a developer too. But we need to pay attention to making whatever it is we're presenting, readable and useful.
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Totally agree. The trend, esp on mobile apps, to use a light colour font on a white background and/or use 0.01pt font size is just stupid.
Either
a) the phone is big enough that there's space to make the fonts a little bigger. Teeny tiny words with a ton of space around is pointless
b) the phone is small in which case you NEED bigger fonts
Make the contrast better and that certainly helps. Apple has specific guidelines on this. Which they themselves ignore. 
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote: Apple has specific guidelines on this. Which they themselves ignore.
I have an old iPad mini that I use for reading (especially as I'm going to sleep).
I don't have my reading glasses on and invariably some "important" pop-up message from the iOS system will popup and I can't read it because it is way too small and very little contrast (font v background). I usually just click either button to dismiss the alert ([ok] [cancel]) but I usually have no idea what I've unleashed.
I also have an Android (kindle pad) that I read on and most generally I can see the messages even without glasses.
Lately, my theory is that Apple only wants young people who can see small faded fonts. I honestly have begun to believe it is on purpose. Surely they could fix this?? 
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Stupid . . . unless you would rather not have people read the legal terms, and only care about ticking the "we made them available" box.
I'm sure it's not always an accident.
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The worst part is that (IMO) this was a mostly solved problem. Plenty of very usable desktop apps out there.
Then it all went to sh*t, it seems, when "designers" forced themselves to "rethink" user interfaces when tablets came out. And in the process made everything worse for everyone.
As a developer, I genuinely feel we've taken a few steps backwards in terms of usability. I can't wait for things to move forward again.
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Well said ...   There is some analogy with noisy office computers 10-15 years ago, when I was the one always complaining about these "vacuum cleaners", but now, noisy office computers are simply "not done" . So, let's hope that clumsy GUI design will fade away too ... Right mentality is necessary to achieve this I think, and courage among GUI developers to "take care", be more professional in a good sense ...
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Something long ago a peeve of mine - even back in the days of DOS. The first paid programming I did (as a programmer) was to replace a DOS application. It was generally displayed on a custom monitor built into a custom console - and all was B&W. (40 char wide pages, too!).
However, the color choices to get some B&W contrast caused eye pain when in color.
In my rewrite I deliberately remapped the color palette to allow good contrast without horrible color combinations (White on black can become yellow on maroon: great contrast but less pain). Moreover, since many still used the B&W monitors I detected that and had another font-mapping specifically for them.
Today I still hold to the same practices. Meanwhile, work done by contractors here (where I work now) does the tiny skinny fonts with poor contrast. I shudder to think about looking at that all do as the various users have to tolerate. In web mode, not being a web designer, I optimize for efficiency, consistency, and eye-ease. For whatever reason, I think that somehow signifies that one knows what one is doing.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Wholeheartedly agree.
Its long been a pet peeve of mine that some web sites have such low contrast that I often wonder if anytone can actually read the content comfortably. My other big pet peeve is a narrow, fixed width for text down the middle of the browser page, with huge, unused gutters on either side. Sometimes the gutters have ads in them, which is slightly less annoying, but even then, if you have a fairly wide browser window, there can be acres of unused space at the edges. And then there's web sites that render over-wide on my tablet, which seems like its related, meaning that you have to scan left-right to read the content.
Then there's mobile apps that only display in landscape mode. I tend to use my tablet in portrait - its not like its hard to rotate the device, it just seems unnecessary. Especially if there's going to be wide, unused portions at the edges!
Keep Calm and Carry On
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B. L. Zeebub wrote: But it occurs to me that the one basic readability issue still exists: light blue on white!
Weird enough, the best readability is white on blue. Not going to name that OS, my friend.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: Weird enough, the best readability is white on blue.
I think you've hit on an example of why designers/developers get it wrong! The "normal" tendency in this context is to ask questions like "how's the best readability achieved?", with the end result being a myriad of opinions. But, it's my belief that there's NO "one size fits all" solution: I'm partially color-blind, and have glaucoma, and find yellow-on-maroon to be the most readable for ME. It's truly a Personal Preference issue that should be user-accessible, admittedly with reasonable defaults, but not constrained by design/dev/os/browser.
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B. L. Zeebub wrote: But, it's my belief that there's NO "one size fits all" solution
There is; but that's based on science, not opinions of designers.
B. L. Zeebub wrote: I'm partially color-blind, and have glaucoma, and find yellow-on-maroon to be the most readable for ME. It's truly a Personal Preference issue that should be user-accessible, admittedly with reasonable defaults, but not constrained by design/dev/os/browser.
There was this kid in school who was visually impaired and used the high-contrast setting (yellow/black). It would hurt our eyes, but was readable to him.
After that, came the designers that knew better and would not adhere to the default Windows colors. Software needs to be developed quickly, and the accessability options were ones of the first to be cut.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Take a look at Tape Measures the ones most used by Carpenters
Yellow and Black and now they have the little 1/8 marks in RED
Perhaps UI design people need a look at how other professions do things
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Choroid wrote:
Take a look at Tape Measures the ones most used by Carpenters
Yellow and Black and now they have the little 1/8 marks in RED
Perhaps UI design people need a look at how other professions do things
Good example!
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Tape is not a screen.
Good try though.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I didn't have glaucoma but I had a similar problem until I had cataract surgery just after Christmas, the idea of light grey text on a white background makes you wonder what some people are thinking when designing websites.
At least I can seen the creation and update times on the 'Quick Answers' page now
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Agree...
Heck, I have even a mini form where there are some fixed elements, which I change the colouring with a couple of buttons to check how it looks like before starting to code new things in other places.
People that doesn't check that are lazy morons. The only excuse I would accept is the dev were daltonic
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I think they are trying to run us off. light gray on white too.
You must hate someone if not me. 
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Doesn't address the problem, but may be of help: try the "Stylish" extension in Chrome. Allows you to define custom stylesheets, and to specify which websites those sheets should apply to. It's not perfect but it is possible to create a generic "high contrast" sheet that mostly works on most sites, (and works perfectly for some).
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Thanks for that! I didn't know about that one... I'll monkey with it; perhaps it approaches the CSS doinking that I was talking about!
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I like “dark mode”, and use it when it’s available. I wish cp had a dark mode.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Dark Reader works here on CP and most of the time elsewhere. Have to turn it off occasionally.
Brave Web Browser.
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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#realJSOP wrote: “dark mode”
In this household, "dark mode" is when I turn off the monitor for the night.
In all seriousness, I try to like dark mode, but the problem is, on a bright day, with the sun beaming through a window, I can't see anything on a dark monitor. Dark backgrounds only make the dust layer more visible.
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It's not just the text. A lot of sites have low contrast on textboxes so it's very difficult to figure out where the entry fields are. Making me guess is not consumer friendly.
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Kiddie coders and a product of the me-myself-and-I generation.
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