Popular design guides are responsible for plague of grey type

Go to the accessibility settings for your browser check the setting to force zoom…

4 Likes

That was what I read the first time, too, but I think his point was that they are essentially forcing you to download an app that is crippled (and doesn’t allow zoom), when the website would work just fine if they’d let it.

ETA: oh shit, I was wrong, I thought you were quoting a different post :hushed:

1 Like

3 Likes

What browser is that, by the way?

2 Likes

It’s called surf, from the people who do dwm, dmenu, etc.

http://surf.suckless.org
http://google.com/search?q=suckless+surf

The GTK theme is, like, “High Contrast Inverse” or whatever from mate-themes, but that only affects the scrollbar.

I do the text colors with a CSS file.

5 Likes

Ugh. GTK. Do they hate themselves? :laughing: Thanks for the links. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

UR DESKTOP METAPHORZ - I REJECT THEM!!

4 Likes

Sadly such settings are not available on IOS devices.

1 Like

It’s basically just webkit with some keyboard commands.

Attention web and software designers: accessibility is not a dirty word. Neither is contrast.

I get it. Screen readers are hard to use, and there’s like so much assistive technology out there to consider. The good news is there’s tons of tools out there to automate testing stuff like this.

Jeez, yesterday I go off on an i18n rant and today it’s accessibility. Hopefully Cory doesn’t start a thread about like tabs vs spaces next or I’ll totally lose my shit.

4 Likes

Getting notified about Gdk-Critical errors makes me feel like I’m at a real computer, getting real work done.

8 Likes

There is a relatively simple way to increase contrast AND have your black on grey text. The important thing to know is the human eye is bad at picking up gradients, it’s much better at picking up contrast. Modern browsers support a css property called “text-shadow”. With text-shadow you can put a gradient around letters, giving them a glow. With a subtle enough glow (in HSL terms you would keep the same hue and saturation) it’s really hard to spot the gradient but you still get the boost in legibility because it increases the contrast.

1 Like

Completely off topic, but what is up with those shoulder pads?

1 Like

Like, hinting in TrueType/Cleartype/whatever?

2 Likes

Even worse when combined with the style of putting a scrolling translucent foreground over a fixed background image.

3 Likes

Every show I’ve worked on has addressed this problem as responsibly as they can. I mean, they don’t mix the show for shitty mono Magnavox tube TVs from the 70s or anything, but they try to strike a balance between dynamic range for those of us with fancy home theaters, and comfort and legibility and a reasonably limited dynamic range for folks with older, more modest setups. Most of the sound mix session is conducted using the dub stage’s large, expensive 5.1 speakers that are suitable for a high-end movie theater (and many of the stages are equipped to handle much fancier mixes than simple 5.1 or 7.1 mixes), but at the end of the mix, the show is played back on small home-theater-size (though still pretty high-end) speakers, usually in stereo to ensure everything comes through clearly for those whose setups can only handle the LT/RT mix. Each network has strict limits on levels and dynamic range, since those networks (not the studios) get the angry calls from viewers who have to actively ride the volume knobs to hear the quiet dialogue without blowing out their windows during the explosions and gunshots. Show producers often want to maximize the dynamic range for best dramatic effect, and try to optimize the mix for the very best home theater setups, but the network delivery requirements aim for a more homogenized set of standards. It’s a constant struggle.

Still, if you have a surround system, it’s up to you to set your levels. Nearly all the dialogue comes out of the Center channel, so make sure it’s at a reasonable level compared to the Left and Right channels.

If you have a simple stereo or mono setup, you should be able to hear everything just fine without fiddling with it, unless the mixer genuinely fucked up the mix, or something got out of phase during layback.

They’re not. They’re just compressed to stay right at the top of that range. The TV programs need more dynamic range so explosions and gunshots don’t sound exactly as loud as whispered dialogue, and vice versa. Commercials just sound louder because they’re mixed very near the peak allowable levels for their whole 30 seconds. If your speakers are clipping during commercials, you have your amp too loud anyway.

7 Likes

Nope. I’ve done audio engineering, and I recorded straight off the set top box, and I got commercials soft-clipping straight off the RCA output.

2 Likes

Are the commercials coming from the network or the headend though?

I’ve found the crap that cable companies insert into the stream to be a mixed bag of suck - loud audio, change in resolution, etc. I’d imagine the stream from the network itself would be somewhat consistent.

5 Likes

It’s FIOS, and I think they inject commercials at the Head end, because they interrupt each other pretty often.

1 Like