Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits

bug #37834 touches on this too.

On fully updated edgy system there is even no bacground for progress bar, so there is white text on grey background. I am convinced this is no doubt an important "edgy-beta" issue to fix.

the bars should be orange, do you have a screenshot showing your issue?

My guess would be that the titlebar text is fine because it has a dark shadow which enhances the contrast. The progressbar text which is white on orange might be difficult to see for some.

I'm not sure if this represents a valid test, but I played with it a bit in gimp, first making it grayscale and then fading out the contrast a bit. See attached file. We do of course have the high contrast theme, but that may be overkill for those who are 'just' colour blind.

Can we close this?

This bug also falls under the area of accessibility features. The default look cannot possibly hope to address the specific needs of particular disabilities or special abilities -- Ubuntu should provide a look / feel for various classes of disabilities. I am not qualified to evaluate those classes, so perhaps someone within Ubuntu with a particular class of disability might be more authoritative on the matter.

Ultimately, however, this is beyond the scope of the default theme. Once we have an appropriate 'need intensive' version of a look, it will be simple to address these issues.

Similar bug reports: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/human-gtk-theme/+bug/19549

Henrik what do you think?

I'm setting the importance to low because it should be possible to work around it with other themes. Soon we will also have a colour filter for gnome-mag, which should help colour blind people as well.

However, if we can provide universal access with the default theme, then we should and make it more useable generally in the process.

Punting it off to un-named alternate themes is not good enough. Which alternative theme would you choose to cover this use case? The other alternatives are likely to have had less polish and have been subjected to less input from people, including those with visual impairments and may well all be worse in this regard. They are certainly less discoverable.

A case in point is bug 78661 which shows that the inverse contrast theme is currently broken.

"However, if we can provide universal access with the default theme"

Sorry, there is no such creature.

We need to focus on the fact that users fall into very strict needs. Specifically, this is no different than language based restrictions (and the related motifs that work only for particular cultures.)

Perhaps we should consider some form of easily accessed hotkey combination or like tool that would flip Ubuntu into a particular accessibility needs mode? This would make it far easier for someone with distinct needs to access the proper look. It would be of use if we could somehow find needs based on the various motor / sense patterns -- perhaps offering visual / audible / motor augmentations so that they can be 'stacked' to meet the requirements of a given user.

Throwing ideas out there with the hopes that something gels.

Ultimately, however, there is no such creature as "universal access". It is a Utopian myth. We need to be realistic about our target audiences for a given design pattern, and target them specifically. In the end, the overarching lack of design direction in _all_ of the buntu's relates to this fundamental underlying concept.

Troy,

I'm glad to see that you are applying yourself to the complex issues accessibility. The hotkeys you describe can be very useful in certain situations and are a key part of this spec: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs/ColorFilters aimed at improving clarity for the colour blind.

You are of course right that the is no such thing as as "universal access" and there never can be. However it is still that myth we must stretch toward and always measure ourselves against because it is the only right thing to do. If we don't aim to constantly improve inclusion and access we will gradually slip into the dark ages. Who exactly is your "target audience" and why do they not include the visually impaired? There are a great deal many more visually impaired people in the world than there are desktop Linux users.

That said, I don't think this bug report is the right place to debate ubuntu's overall design philosophy or who our target audience should be. So I will stop here. Troy, if you want to want to start a wiki page or a mailing list thread where you make a case for why we should focus our efforts only on users with good vision I will be happy to debate it further with you there.

I would suggest that instead of implementing a poor 'middle' ground for these issues, it might be prudent to target the needs in an orthodox manner.

That said, it would seem to make sense to target the fundamental theme at a larger percentage group. Demographics are an unfortunate reality in this circumstance. It would seem logical that someone with motor impairment not be forced to use a medium 'middle' ground window control in OSX, or colour impairment be forced to use the palette of the default view.

Reality would obviously dictate that these such needs are quickly (in an ideal world ;) ) overcome by specific design semantics for each particular facility.

I personally believe that if we can make it a mandate to acknowledge this, and begin designing Ubuntu centric design patterns for those elements, we would probably further the cause.

The simple act of attempting to aim for "universal" access is, in my opinion, watering down our attempts at strictly addressing the needs of the many individuals who require a diligent and well planned design strategy to facilitate their computing.

Do you know of any wiki pages established to tackle these sorts of issues Henrik?

The contrast seems much better with the new Murrine theme.