North Coast Web Students

As a North Coast Web Student myself, I did much research into web design courses before I enrolled at the North Coast Institute.  This blog is part of an assignment for the Certificate IV in Web Design.  For more information on studying on the North Coast of NSW, Australia, please click here.

Colour blindness research put into practice

This post concludes my research into colour blindness and the internet.  What an eye-opening (no pun intended!) journey it has been.  I have learnt about the importance of designing websites with accessibility in mind, the fact that it is illegal to not do this (which I did not know!) and the importance (and size) of this group of web users.  

I think as designers we get so caught up in the design and the client’s needs and wants that we forget about the end user and the fact that 1 in 10 web users has some form of disability.

I have designed a website with my target group in mind and have put it to the test with the colour blind web page filter.

You can view it here.

Iconic Art: As seen by the color blind

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying: “He/she sees the world through rose colored glasses.”
Of course we all interpret art in our own way, but did you ever wonder how the color blind see art?

Andy Warhol paintings as seen by someone who's color blind

Accessibility standards

As a web designer there are a number of disability user groups to be aware of. You may like to design for all or some. 

Why bother you might say? Well besides the fact that you are being professional and inclusive, you might be interested to know that an accessible website is more likely to rank higher with search engines than an inaccessible website.

Here is a basic summary of some key points to remember whilst designing an accessible website:

• use an adjustable font size
• use alt text for all images
• use international date formats (yyyy-mm-dd)
• use CSS rather than tables
• use the <title> element effectively: short and descriptive as possible
• use the <h1> element
• don’t use the <font> tag – use CSS to format text
• use relative size values not fixed size values (ie. medium/large – instead of 12 point)
• don’t use a small font size
• use a background colour
• use high contrast colours (ie. black text on white background is best for people with visual disabilities, avoid coloured text like red, blue, yellow and green)
• use plain fonts rather than fancy fonts
• avoid italics
• have adequate text/line spacing

For more information on general web accessibility standards, please visit these websites:

w3.org

w3schools.com

W3C Report: How people with disabilities use the web 

How does your website look to the color blind?

If you are designing websites with accessibility in mind then you may want to see how your website would look to the color blind before you actually launch it.  Check out this cool tool called the Colorblind Web Page Filter which enables you to enter your url and see your website through the eyes of a color blind user.

What is color blindness?

In my research on color blindness and the internet, I’ve been amazed as to the information and resources available on this subject.  Did you know that as a web designer, 1 in 12 visitors to your website are color blind?  Depending on your traffic of course, this could add up to thousands of visitors.  There are three main types of color blindness, each type is then broken down into subtypes which refers to sensitivity to a particular color or specific color section on the color spectrum.

The most common type of color blindness is Anomalous Trichromat Vision.  When designing for this group, it is important to avoid red and green color combinations as this group will not be able to tell these colors apart.  The same things goes for combinations with variations of red and green – which includes purple and orange.

Other key recommendations are the use of high contrasting color combinations like black and white, and the use of large clear fonts.

Kids and colour blindness

Being a parent for the first time I am conscious of children’s “developmental milestones” and how my own son is progressing.  Now that he is almost two and learning to talk it doesn’t cease to amaze me as to the speed he is learning.  In doing my research for my assignment on Colour blindness and the internet I came across some information on colour blindness in children.  Right now my son calls every colour blue – does that mean he is colour blind? No I think it’s just that he’s not quite at that learning milestone yet.  For more information on colour blindness in children, visit this website.

Adobe.com gets accessibility tick of approval

Creative software giant Adobe.com gets the website accessibility tick of approval according to All Web Design Blog, who applauds Adobe’s website for its monochromatic design. Interestingly enough, Adobe also has an Accessibility page on its website; when I clicked on this I found a link to their Accessibility Resource Centre. Check out their resources which include info on finding solutions to accessibility problems using Adobe products. Clever.

 

40 cool black & white websites

One of the recommendations I found in my research on designing websites for the colour blind was to design in black & white.  At first I thought that would be a difficult task given all the colour that is out there but then I found this website of beautifully cool black & white websites.

 

black & white website design for the colour blind

New blog theme to suit colour blind readers

Whilst doing my research on colour blindness and the internet, I realised that the WordPress theme I initially chose was all wrong! It contained orange and green text – a nightmare for some colour blind users.  Therefore I have updated my theme to be more black and white which is one of the recommendations I came across at All Web Design Blog, a great blog resource that highlights some good basic key points to remember when designing websites for the colour blind.