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Thread: typical user stylesheet settings
Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)
From: Nathalie Sequeira
Date: Fri, Jan 31 2014 1:18AM
Subject: typical user stylesheet settings
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Hello all,
I am looking for bundled information about the color combinations in
user stylesheets used to alleviate different types of sight impairment.
A search on the web hasn't brought me much enlightenment on this head.
Thus my question: does anyone know of such a resource, or have
information about this?
Thanks!
Nathalie
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Fri, Jan 31 2014 6:16AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Hi Nathalie!
I'm not aware of such resources. When I could see, I did use a user stylesheet. However, it was one I created myself. In my case, most of the changes were related to colour. I would change the background colour to black, the foreground text to white, links to a bright yellow, visited links to a lime green, focused or hovered links to red, and I would change labels to cyan. I would also set up the stylesheet to place a cyan border around HTML form controls. It made it easier for me to read the content and it also allowed me to decrease the magnification level when I wanted to scan the page to scan for certain types of content. For example, I could decrease the magnification and look for a column of yellow which I would assume was likely to be navigation of some type or look for cyan blue to find forms on the page. The red didn't work out as well, but I never quite found a colour that was different enough from the others and also highly visible (when there was only one
little block of that colour) on the screen.
Tim
From: Hewitt,Susan (DSHS)
Date: Fri, Jan 31 2014 6:29AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Hi Nathalie,
I think you might be asking about template stylesheets with good color combos. I don't know of a site with any of those but here are a couple of resources I use when you choosing colors for design.
Contrast-A lets you choose different combinations from a spectrum to create a custom palette. It tells you which levels of WCAG contrast ratio it passes as well as simulating different types of color deficiencies:
http://www.dasplankton.de/ContrastA/
And here's a rather exhaustive list of color combos samples and their pass status: http://trace.wisc.edu/contrast-ratio-examples/
Hope this helps,
Susan Hewitt
EIR Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Department of State Health Services
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | 512-776-2913
From: Patrick Dunphy
Date: Fri, Jan 31 2014 6:58AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Similar to the previous link, this tool from NC State allows you to preview
& verify colour palette choices.
http://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/tools/color-contrast/index.php
-PD
On 31 Jan 2014 08:30, "Hewitt,Susan (DSHS)" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> Hi Nathalie,
>
> I think you might be asking about template stylesheets with good color
> combos. I don't know of a site with any of those but here are a couple of
> resources I use when you choosing colors for design.
>
> Contrast-A lets you choose different combinations from a spectrum to
> create a custom palette. It tells you which levels of WCAG contrast ratio
> it passes as well as simulating different types of color deficiencies:
> http://www.dasplankton.de/ContrastA/
>
> And here's a rather exhaustive list of color combos samples and their pass
> status: http://trace.wisc.edu/contrast-ratio-examples/
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Susan Hewitt
> EIR Accessibility Coordinator
> Texas Department of State Health Services
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | 512-776-2913
>
>
>
>
From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Fri, Jan 31 2014 7:04AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Hi Nathalie,
there is very interesting resource from Silas Brown (cf. http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/ssb22/ ) who as one of his projects built a tool to generate user style sheets according to various parameters, among those parameters being certain foreground/background color combinations (cf. http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/ssb22/css/ ) and text sizes.
One of the strengths of his style sheets is that he has fine tuned them to work even with some of the more unruly widely used websites.
Give it a try - it is free of charge.
Olaf
On 31 Jan 2014, at 09:18, Nathalie Sequeira < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am looking for bundled information about the color combinations in user stylesheets used to alleviate different types of sight impairment.
> A search on the web hasn't brought me much enlightenment on this head.
>
> Thus my question: does anyone know of such a resource, or have information about this?
>
> Thanks!
> Nathalie
>
> > >
From: Nathalie Sequeira
Date: Mon, Feb 03 2014 1:00AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Hello Tim and all,
thank you very much for the description of the stylesheet you used to
use -- and especially the insight I could gain from your description of
how you used it.
I find it very helpful as it helps "put myself in the shoes" of people
who perceive the web differently than I do.
Meanwhile, I have continued my search, and have found a few articles by
Wayne Dick, which also answer why I cannot find anything much about
"typical" user stylesheets:
"There are more than 30 causes of low vision, and around 15 subsystems
of the eye and brain that can be attacked to produce low vision. There
are literally hundreds of ways partial sight can manifest itself."
(http://blog.knowbility.org/content/nose-to-the-page-4/)
So, if user stylesheets are to cater to the specific needs of an
individual, they will necessarily be very varied in how they are configured.
OTOH, I still think it must be possible to boil this variety down to a
few generalized groups, such as "high contrast" similar to Tim's
example, or "low luminosity contrast" (I have been reading that people
with dyslexia profit from that kind of setting).
Also, the choices available in Silas Brown's stylesheet maker that Olaf
linked to, or even google Accessibility's "High Contrast" Addon for
Chrome must be based on some reasoning as to "typical" user needs.
Thus, I will delve further into this and will gladly share what I find
to the list :)
Nathalie
From: Nathalie Sequeira
Date: Mon, Feb 03 2014 1:01AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Thanks Susan and Patrick,
those are pretty neat and I didnt know them!
Cheers
Nathalie
Am 31.01.2014 14:58, schrieb Patrick Dunphy:
> Similar to the previous link, this tool from NC State allows you to preview
> & verify colour palette choices.
>
> http://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/tools/color-contrast/index.php
>
> -PD
> On 31 Jan 2014 08:30, "Hewitt,Susan (DSHS)" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Nathalie,
>>
>> I think you might be asking about template stylesheets with good color
>> combos. I don't know of a site with any of those but here are a couple of
>> resources I use when you choosing colors for design.
>>
>> Contrast-A lets you choose different combinations from a spectrum to
>> create a custom palette. It tells you which levels of WCAG contrast ratio
>> it passes as well as simulating different types of color deficiencies:
>> http://www.dasplankton.de/ContrastA/
>>
>> And here's a rather exhaustive list of color combos samples and their pass
>> status: http://trace.wisc.edu/contrast-ratio-examples/
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> Susan Hewitt
>> EIR Accessibility Coordinator
>> Texas Department of State Health Services
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | 512-776-2913
>>
>>
>>
From: David Sloan
Date: Mon, Feb 03 2014 2:44AM
Subject: Re: typical user stylesheet settings
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Hi Nathalie
If you haven't yet, you should also look at Shawn Henry's TAdER (Text Adaptability is Essential for Reading) project, which explores people's customisation preferences for readability:
http://www.tader.info/research.html
This includes some interesting results from surveys of people who apply text customisation to web content - especially the diversity and frequency of customisation types.
Text customisation for readability of online content was the subject of a WAI Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) Symposium in November 2012. The papers presented during the symposium, and a transcript of the discussion that took place, are available at:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2012/text-customization/
I'm also involved in producing a Research Note, currently in development, summarising the Symposium discussions. Progress on this has been slow (my apologies to those waiting for its publication), but we expect to publish it in the first half of this year.
Best wishes
Dave
On 3 Feb 2014, at 08:01, Nathalie Sequeira < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Thanks Susan and Patrick,
> those are pretty neat and I didnt know them!
> Cheers
> Nathalie
>
>
> Am 31.01.2014 14:58, schrieb Patrick Dunphy:
>> Similar to the previous link, this tool from NC State allows you to preview
>> & verify colour palette choices.
>>
>> http://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/tools/color-contrast/index.php
>>
>> -PD
>> On 31 Jan 2014 08:30, "Hewitt,Susan (DSHS)" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Nathalie,
>>>
>>> I think you might be asking about template stylesheets with good color
>>> combos. I don't know of a site with any of those but here are a couple of
>>> resources I use when you choosing colors for design.
>>>
>>> Contrast-A lets you choose different combinations from a spectrum to
>>> create a custom palette. It tells you which levels of WCAG contrast ratio
>>> it passes as well as simulating different types of color deficiencies:
>>> http://www.dasplankton.de/ContrastA/
>>>
>>> And here's a rather exhaustive list of color combos samples and their pass
>>> status: http://trace.wisc.edu/contrast-ratio-examples/
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>>
>>> Susan Hewitt
>>> EIR Accessibility Coordinator
>>> Texas Department of State Health Services
>>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | 512-776-2913
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> > > The Paciello Group.