Color contrast issue in Celerity

[branchandroot]

A support/bug item was put in by a user who found the cream background color, in the Celerity site scheme, difficult to read on. I wanted to bounces this around here and ask if anyone else has had or heard of similar problems.

If it's an isolated issue, it will probably be best to deal with it via that user's browser styles. If it's more wide-spread, then the scheme should be changed.

The current background color is #f9f9f0 and the text color is #222211. Should these be edged further apart? I would like to strike some kind of happy medium between too-high and too-low contrast, though this may, in the end, not be possible.

Comments

[zvi]

Checked the contrast via a tool which tests for WCAG 1 and WCAG 2 level compliance. The contrast is past the minimums for both tests.

WCAG = Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

[forthwritten]

I personally don't use Celerity because I find the colour scheme too difficult to work with. The problem I have with it isn't the text colour on the background colour, but the visited and unvisited link colours on the background colour (as for usernames on the profile page) and the colour of links on the comment headers (e.g. the username).

I also find the font kind of awkward, but I suspect that's more my issue than a design issue.

[rainbow]

Hi, Rho pointed me over here because that's probably me who put in the support request.

I have severe visual processing issues due to a brain injury, and do best with black on white, which is what Celerity was (for me, anyway) utnil suddenly late yesterday.

I've tried both the Trops, but found that they have drop downs, which I have problems using, and also don't have a white background.

Then I tried Lynx, but the links are missing from the side to do things (which is why I use Celerity).

I tried making changes via my browser, but I can't figure out how to make it just do the site scheme pages -- instead it's changing my own layout, which is easy to read for me, and pages for other places. (I use Firefox, and if someone can explain how to change the background for just the site scheme, I would be grateful. In small words, please, since when I get nailed with processing issues I have trouble with more and more processing and get confused too easy.)

[rydra_wong]

It's definitely got a strongly tinted background now; in combination with the green it does make it pretty colour-heavy, which may be hard on some people. I tested it out and did find myself wanting to change it back in a hurry (sensory processing issues).

As a practical point, it means that Lynx is the only available site scheme with a white background, right?

Neurologically-based visual processing issues can be very idiosyncratic, so there's never going to be a one-size-fits-all option (I know some people have an easier time reading with a tinted background).

But maybe it might be worth thinking in terms of choices -- making sure that there are at least a couple of site schemes with a white background, for example.

[smilingslightly]

Along the lines of what everyone else is saying: everybody's different. Celerity is by far the easiest scheme for me to use and I prefer less contrasty styles in general. (I like Celerity's lack of dropdowns, too.) In a sort of aside, because ze doesn't use Dw, my partner can't read #ffffff backgrounds at all because they dramatically worsen hir dyslexia.

So, uh, yeah, the more schemes, the merrier. :)

[iamshadow]

I'm waiting on a site scheme with a dark background and light text.