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Subject:RE: Color and colorblindness From:"Blount, Patricia A" <Patricia -dot- Blount -at- ca -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:15:38 -0400
Regarding Nancy's post about accounting for color blind users, this has
become an important topic for me as BOTH of my sons are color-deficient.
My oldest's disability showed up early, but somehow, my youngest's did
not until just this year. He took a quiz on Facebook and was astounded.
I had him officially checked and even asked how he could get to fifteen
years old and no one notice this before.
The answer lies in the link Nancy provided. More and more authors are
using not just color-cues but other visual cues to help guide their
readers. For example, textbooks issued to my son refer to "the large red
box on the right" (instead of merely "the red box"). (There is also a
great degree of compensation both boys learned early that guided their
clothing choices, etc., etc.)
There is a game on Facebook my sons enjoy called Bouncing Balls. The
first two levels are easy. But subsequent levels display light green
balls beside yellow balls, or purple balls beside blue ones. Neither of
my sons can distinguish between them. They often ask me to stand behind
them and call out, "Yellow!" "Green!"... Fun times. :)
If you have examples you're considering, I'm happy to run suggestions by
the boys for feedback, if you need it.
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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