[disks-admin] Supported features icons in Disks Manager are inaccessible for colour blind users

[seanh]

My laptop is an IBM Thinkpad T21 currently running the Dapper Beta. Hardware info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SeanHammond?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=taptaplshw.html
It looks (though I cannot be sure) as if a red circle is used to mean unsupported in the 'Supported Features' section in the info about my DVD-ROM in disks-admin and (guessing) a green circle would be used to mean supported.

I think this is bad icon design - I am red-green colourblind and would have difficulty picking out green circles from an array of red circles (this is actually what they do to test if you're colourblind or not).

Even at the moment (when disks-admin is displaying all 6 features as disabled for me, see bug #45241) I find it slightly difficult to decide if the dialog is saying my drive supports all features (green) or none (red), though I'm pretty sure it's red.

So even if the icon for supported is actually something like a green tick instrad of a circle, a red circle is still a bad negative icon for a colourblind person, as without a positive icon to compare it against I can't reliably tell what it means. Only the colour red gives away the meaning of the icon. A red cross would be better as there is meaning in the icon regardless of its colour.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Hmm this sounds like an accessibility issue. Punting to system-tools-backends

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Wonder if we can get the artwork guys to do a quick-fix and replace the red circle with a red-cross so that there is a visual difference between the icons as well as the current difference in hue. This would mean:

  X bad thing...
  O good thing...

Rather than the two current 'O' circles.

[seanh (seanh)]

It would still be difficult to tell if a green O was green or red in the case where all features are shown as supported. Ideally I think it should be
green ticks and red x's. However green O's and red X's would very much reduce the problem I think.

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 08:09:42PM -0000, Paul Sladen wrote:
> Wonder if we can get the artwork guys to do a quick-fix and replace the
> red circle with a red-cross so that there is a visual difference between
> the icons as well as the current difference in hue. This would mean:
>
> X bad thing...
> O good thing...
>
> Rather than the two current 'O' circles.
>
> ** Changed in: system-tools-backends (Ubuntu)
> Status: Unconfirmed => Confirmed
>
> --
> Supported features icons in Disks Manager are inaccessible for colour blind users
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/45242
>

--
<email address hidden>
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

[seanh (seanh)]

Added screenshot of the culprit dialog, in this shot it is showing only red squares due to another bug I have (#45241) but colour-blind users should be able to confirm that this icon is inaccessible.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Can we up the severity on this bug? See Bug #45241 for an explanation

[seanh (seanh)]

I'd like the severity of this bug increased at some point. Colour blindness affects a significant number of people (up to 10% of males in some cultures), and I can attest that these icons are very inaccessible for people with at least my form of colour blindness (red-green).

Also see bug #45241.

[nightshift (sander-venema)]

I'm agreeing that it is much better if we replace the red and green
dots with green ticks and red crosses. This way it is much clearer for
people who suffer from color-blindness. It is indeed a significant
number of people, and I think we should replace it, especially because
the distro aims at serving the needs of the general desktop-user, and
is very user-friendly.

[Jean-Pierre Rupp (xenog)]

El jue, 18-05-2006 a las 10:57 +0000, nightshift escribió:
> I'm agreeing that it is much better if we replace the red and green
> dots with green ticks and red crosses. This way it is much clearer for
> people who suffer from color-blindness. It is indeed a significant
> number of people, and I think we should replace it, especially because
> the distro aims at serving the needs of the general desktop-user, and
> is very user-friendly.

I agree, it is even more ergonomic to do it this way for those of us who
are not color blind, definitely a win-win solution.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Marking as invalid, as disks-admin was removed from gnome-system-tools in ubuntu a long time ago.