Graphs are not accessible to the color blind

[cheddar]

Our recommended versus actual bolus colors are not accessible to colorblind people. Given the room for complications with diabetes, I think it's important that we design for being as accessible to as many people with "disabilities" as possible from the beginning, so I think we should reconsider the color choices.

I might be wrong on the colors, but from what Chrome told me the colors are

actual: #79d0f2 recommended: #bcecfa

There's a handy website that you can use to verify that colors will contrast enough to be visible to the color blind: http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

This website shows that our current color choices fail. We should strive for at least WCAG AA. AAA is great, but AA is generally minimum.

[jebeck]

+1

I've mentioned to @ianjorgensen and @skrugman recently that I would like us to start exploring accessible typography (there are standards for things like type vs. background color contrast, and we should try to meet them and/or have a user option for an accessible color and type "skin").

[skrugman]

This is important. I will address it Monday.

On May 3, 2014, at 12:31 AM, Jana Beck notifications@github.com wrote:

+1

I've mentioned to @ianjorgensen and @skrugman recently that I would like us to start exploring accessible typography (there are standards for things like type vs. background color contrast, and we should try to meet them and/or have a user option for an accessible color and type "skin").

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[cheddar]

Btw, was talking with my accessibility analyst friend about this stuff some more over the weekend and he told me something that I wasn't thinking about. I'll borrow the words from Apple's usability guides

Although color can greatly enhance a user interface, make sure it is not the only source of information. A blind user may not be able to distinguish between two objects that differ only in color

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accessibility/Conceptual/AccessibilityMacOSX/AccessibilityMacOSX.pdf

So, perhaps we need to look into some other way to visualize the two states without relying on color alone?

[ianjorgensen]

To test for color blindness nothing beats being color blind, even better being all types of color blind at once: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/colorblind-vision/id401516863?mt=8

@cheddar yes color and shape is the general rule, street crossing lights are a good example of this.

[cheddar]

Another link that might be helpful.

http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-without-color.html