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Re: Colour accessibility

for

From: Oscar DeLong
Date: May 5, 2008 7:20AM

One thing I would like to say is to be careful of how bright the red is.
If the red is to bright and glary it causes me to have headaches but
like you mentioned that is my personal situation. I have been able to
find nothing that suggests an excess of red on a webpage would cause
issues so long as you keep a few things in mind, which I'm sure you
already know. First, use high contrast since some people cannot see red
correctly. Second, never use color alone to distinguish something
important. Most of what I have found only talks about how
color-blindness causes complications with distinguishing things but
nothing seems to suggest that red causes other forms of accessibility
issues. I hope this helps.

Oscar DeLong

Oscar DeLong
Access Services/Reference Librarian
Ottenheimer Library
Pulaski Technical College
3000 West Scenic Drive
North Little Rock, AR 72118
(501) 812-2718
<EMAIL REMOVED>

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Linda Simpson
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 9:49 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Colour accessibility

Hi,

We've been asked to change our colour scheme on our websites to fit into
our
corporate colour scheme. We currently use blue, and the colour we've
been
asked to change to is now red. Our site will be using a solid
background,
with white for the content area (along the lines of news.com.au). Our
concern is that such a large amount of red may cause accessibility/
usability issues (we are not only talking about the background colour
but
also the navigation). We may possibly have some say into the shading of
the
red, but for the moment think of a nice bright colour (#A80D35).

What we need more information about is how the colour red can affect
readability. I have done research, and I know about the w3c colour
contrast
algorithm. I've also had a look at the psychology of the different
colours
and that red is associated with anger and intensity.

What I am wanting to know, does anyone have any failure/ success stories
of
using a large amount of red on a site without it adversely affecting
users.
We also wanted to know if there was a particular range that might cause
headaches in some users. I would also be interested to know of any
research
into what borders on acceptable luminosity. For example, I know in a
couple
of mockups that we have done, the red has been very glary, and makes
focusing on the content quite difficult. Unfortunately, this being a
personal opinion, we need the research to back it up with.

Any help that you can give will be appreciated.

Regards,
Linda