Call for testing: colorblindness vs side-by-side diff

Steve Barnes gadgetsteve at hotmail.com
Wed Jan 7 06:11:51 UTC 2015


On 06/01/15 23:24, Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-01-06 at 16:21 -0500, cowwoc wrote:
>> On 05/01/2015 3:18 PM, Matt Mackall wrote:
>>> (FYI, there are 7 distinct categories of colorblindness of varying
>>> frequency and degree, so a sample size of one is not very useful.)
>>>
>>> The thing I tried to convey to you when you brought this up the first
>>> time was that _we've already done this_. And we got significantly more
>>> input than you have and arrived at the current result.
>>>
>>> Yes, some people are unhappy with the result. That's unfortunate, but
>>> that is going to be the case with every design decision. If we accept
>>> your scheme, a different set of people are going to be unhappy[1] with
>>> the new result and lobby to switch and so on forever.
>>>
>>> At some point, we have to make a choice and stick with it. And as far as
>>> I'm concerned, that point is already in the past. So it's really
>>> doubtful this is going to go anywhere, especially since few people seem
>>> to care this time around.
>>>
>>> [1] Starting with me, because ugh are you serious those colors? [2]
>>> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum
>>>
>> Hi Matt,
>>
>> I get the feeling that there isn't much anyone could present to you at
>> this point which would make you consider changing the color scheme. Am I
>> wrong?
>>
>> While it is true that in the case of taste there can be no right and
>> wrong, it should be relatively trivial to put up a SurveyMonkey poll
>> asking people to vote for their favorite colorblind-approved scheme and
>> go with the majority vote.
> Let's imagine we do this. Now the question becomes: what do we do the
> NEXT time someone wants to change the colors? Because there will always
> be users unhappy with the colors.
>
> Should we repeat the whole process? How about the time after that? At
> what point should we say "no, damnit, we've already done this damn
> thing, why are we still wasting time on this?"
>
> I submit to you that a trivial application of mathematical induction
> reveals the optimal time to say that is right after the first time. And
> that first time, as I've mentioned multiple times now, HAS ALREADY
> PASSED.
>
>> Alternatively, would you consider offering separate colorblind and
>> non-colorblind color schemes?
> That's a really hard sell to a colorblind project leader, yo.
>
> But here's something I'd consider: I hover over the color key and my
> pointer changes. Huh. I click on it, and the color scheme cycles through
> several different sets that nobody needs to spend any time arguing about
> since they're not the default.
>
Matt,

The fact that things like colour choices are often a matter of taste and 
that there are so many different variations of Colour Blindness that 
caused me to suggest months ago that it would be better to spend the 
time on working on a way of allowing the individual user(s) to set their 
own colour scheme was more likely to be useful than trying to find _one_ 
that everybody would agree on.

Steve
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