#legibility — Public Fediverse posts

One #accessibility issue I mention frequently is web designers, presumably for aesthetic reasons, making low-contrast colour choices. It also frequently goes along with selecting a #font so small that only people with excellent vision (and no #presbyopia) can read them, even if the #contrast were higher.

Here's an example. I'm not pointing out the software in question, even though you could identify it easily, because this isn't a dunk on that project, specifically.

This is the reference #documentation for an API, a small excerpt from the navigation links that run down a column on the left side of the page. The #text is darkish #grey on a lighter grey background. The contrast is terrible, particularly ignoring the highlighted entry because that's bolded as the current selection.

If you have #cataracts or any other #vision problem, you're going to have trouble with this. But it gets worse.

That text is 7 pixels high. On my monitors, it's 3 mm high. Ridiculous. Note that if you have fine motor-control problems or use alternative input devices, these are also extremely difficult to click on.

Here's the kicker: for this site, I have Firefox set to #scale the text up to 133%. That 7 pixels / 3 mm is *after* enlarging it.

#Web folks, please try to remember that not everyone is a twenty-something able-bodied person with zero accessibility issues.

#WebDesign #WebDesigner #usability #readability #legibility #WebPage

One #accessibility issue I mention frequently is web designers, presumably for aesthetic reasons, making low-contrast colour choices. It also frequently goes along with selecting a #font so small that only people with excellent vision (and no #presbyopia) can read them, even if the #contrast were higher.

Here's an example. I'm not pointing out the software in question, even though you could identify it easily, because this isn't a dunk on that project, specifically.

This is the reference #documentation for an API, a small excerpt from the navigation links that run down a column on the left side of the page. The #text is darkish #grey on a lighter grey background. The contrast is terrible, particularly ignoring the highlighted entry because that's bolded as the current selection.

If you have #cataracts or any other #vision problem, you're going to have trouble with this. But it gets worse.

That text is 7 pixels high. On my monitors, it's 3 mm high. Ridiculous. Note that if you have fine motor-control problems or use alternative input devices, these are also extremely difficult to click on.

Here's the kicker: for this site, I have Firefox set to #scale the text up to 133%. That 7 pixels / 3 mm is *after* enlarging it.

#Web folks, please try to remember that not everyone is a twenty-something able-bodied person with zero accessibility issues.

#WebDesign #WebDesigner #usability #readability #legibility #WebPage

One #accessibility issue I mention frequently is web designers, presumably for aesthetic reasons, making low-contrast colour choices. It also frequently goes along with selecting a #font so small that only people with excellent vision (and no #presbyopia) can read them, even if the #contrast were higher.

Here's an example. I'm not pointing out the software in question, even though you could identify it easily, because this isn't a dunk on that project, specifically.

This is the reference #documentation for an API, a small excerpt from the navigation links that run down a column on the left side of the page. The #text is darkish #grey on a lighter grey background. The contrast is terrible, particularly ignoring the highlighted entry because that's bolded as the current selection.

If you have #cataracts or any other #vision problem, you're going to have trouble with this. But it gets worse.

That text is 7 pixels high. On my monitors, it's 3 mm high. Ridiculous. Note that if you have fine motor-control problems or use alternative input devices, these are also extremely difficult to click on.

Here's the kicker: for this site, I have Firefox set to #scale the text up to 133%. That 7 pixels / 3 mm is *after* enlarging it.

#Web folks, please try to remember that not everyone is a twenty-something able-bodied person with zero accessibility issues.

#WebDesign #WebDesigner #usability #readability #legibility #WebPage

One #accessibility issue I mention frequently is web designers, presumably for aesthetic reasons, making low-contrast colour choices. It also frequently goes along with selecting a #font so small that only people with excellent vision (and no #presbyopia) can read them, even if the #contrast were higher.

Here's an example. I'm not pointing out the software in question, even though you could identify it easily, because this isn't a dunk on that project, specifically.

This is the reference #documentation for an API, a small excerpt from the navigation links that run down a column on the left side of the page. The #text is darkish #grey on a lighter grey background. The contrast is terrible, particularly ignoring the highlighted entry because that's bolded as the current selection.

If you have #cataracts or any other #vision problem, you're going to have trouble with this. But it gets worse.

That text is 7 pixels high. On my monitors, it's 3 mm high. Ridiculous. Note that if you have fine motor-control problems or use alternative input devices, these are also extremely difficult to click on.

Here's the kicker: for this site, I have Firefox set to #scale the text up to 133%. That 7 pixels / 3 mm is *after* enlarging it.

#Web folks, please try to remember that not everyone is a twenty-something able-bodied person with zero accessibility issues.

#WebDesign #WebDesigner #usability #readability #legibility #WebPage

One #accessibility issue I mention frequently is web designers, presumably for aesthetic reasons, making low-contrast colour choices. It also frequently goes along with selecting a #font so small that only people with excellent vision (and no #presbyopia) can read them, even if the #contrast were higher.

Here's an example. I'm not pointing out the software in question, even though you could identify it easily, because this isn't a dunk on that project, specifically.

This is the reference #documentation for an API, a small excerpt from the navigation links that run down a column on the left side of the page. The #text is darkish #grey on a lighter grey background. The contrast is terrible, particularly ignoring the highlighted entry because that's bolded as the current selection.

If you have #cataracts or any other #vision problem, you're going to have trouble with this. But it gets worse.

That text is 7 pixels high. On my monitors, it's 3 mm high. Ridiculous. Note that if you have fine motor-control problems or use alternative input devices, these are also extremely difficult to click on.

Here's the kicker: for this site, I have Firefox set to #scale the text up to 133%. That 7 pixels / 3 mm is *after* enlarging it.

#Web folks, please try to remember that not everyone is a twenty-something able-bodied person with zero accessibility issues.

#WebDesign #WebDesigner #usability #readability #legibility #WebPage

People seem to love philosophical trolley problems, but they expose more about ontological grammar than a morality profile.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/28/how-trolley-problems-launder-metaphysics-into-intuition/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

The first of a 2-part series on the trolley problem. Part 2 will extend the issue out of the lab and into reality with autonomous devices.

#philosophy #psychology #morality #ontologicalgrammar #harm #trolleyproblem #choice #legibility #acculturation #society #ethics #deontology #virtue #consequences #utility #value #stoicism #blog #podcast

#Design #Launches
Symbl · Preview your logo under visual stress https://ilo.im/16bi0d

_____
#Business #Logo #Symbol #Legibility #UiDesign #VisualDesign #WebDesign #Development #WebDev #Frontend

A colleague and I chatted about a recent publication; he graciously noted he didn't agree with me. I realise that my example was strictly US. In this post, I don't lose the US frame; I added more background and brought in some name support. Feedback and counterpoints welcome.
👉 https://philosophics.blog/2026/02/12/the-architecture-of-cognitive-compromise/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
#philosophy #morals #ethics #thickness #legibility #ontology #biopower #habitus #paradox #tolerance #epistemology #abortion #rights #culture #frameworks #society #blog #podcast #communication

Data and information are never neutral. Seeing Like a State should be required reading for all statisticians, data scientists, and 'if you can't measure it, you can't manage it' cohorts. As I've mentioned before, stats is tossed into maths curricula despite being more about methodology; this talks about historicity.
👉 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20186.Seeing_Like_a_State

#philosopy #socialscience #reading #books #maths #statistics #Enlightenment #perspective #legibility #convenience #critique

I know a ‘scrim’ as a translucent overlay, placed on images beneath a text overlay to enhance text legibility by increasing luminescence contrast.

Origins of the word ‘Scrim’ are unknown. It is used in theater to describe a loosely woven, translucent black curtain hung across the stage. When unlit from behind, it appears as a solid back wall. If actors behind it are lit, they become visible through the scrim, less bright and defined than actors in front of it.
#scrim
#theatre
#legibility

"THE ART OF VISUAL LEGIBILITY: NAVIGATING PATTERNED OPACITY". Abstract digital painting by A.G. (c) 2025. All Rights Reserved. #historiotheque #artoperations #concreterealism #seasonsoftheheart #springtimeoflife #springtimeofjoyfulbeing #art #visual #legibility #navigating #patterned #opacity

#Web #usability and #accessibility ...

This is from crimethinc.com, but I'm not trying to pick particularly on them. There are many, many, many sites just as bad or worse.

This is a screenshot from an article on their site today, rendered in Firefox (Linux).

See the hair-thin font? See the fact that it's light grey on a white background? There's virtually no contrast between the text and the background.

This is an accessibility nightmare for those with any sort of vision problem. Picking the colour out of the screenshot (I didn't look at the CSS), it appears the text is basically 45% grey. This is ludicrous.

If the font face had some heft, it might be still be half-assed readable with contrast this low.

But as is... If I were to take my contacts out, I wouldn't even be able to tell that this screenshot *had* any of the normal-sized text in it, much less be able to read any of it.

Web designers, I beg you: please consider more than the appearance of what you're creating when you're making design choices.

Remember that not everyone is a 20- or 30-something with near-perfect vision.

Remember that people have cataracts or other types of eye cloudiness which necessitate high-contrast text to be able to read, even if they scale the fonts up by a huge amount.

Remember that vision degrades naturally in people in many ways other than "just wear glasses" can fix.

#WebDesign #WebDesigner #web #design #font #contrast #vision #eye #readability #legibility #unreadable

@pvonhellermannn
The article pointed below may help.

Vashti published: "Sarah Aziza, through a stirring mix of personal reflection and philosophical reckoning, disabuses the Western witness of its self-gratifying power, instead – amid Israel’s openly broadcast yet unimpeded march towards genocide in Gaza – unmasking the impotence, deceit and hollowness that witnessing currently entails. More than a collective indictment or last-gasp scream of defiance into the void, Aziza’s own testimony guides the reader towards a form of witness no longer elevated in angelic, uncompromised distance, but instead manifest in the embodied, intimate, ego-displacing position of “sacrifice, mourning and resisting.”"

https://jewishcurrents.org/the-work-of-the-witness

#Aziza #JewishCurrents #socialMedia #shaheed #impotence #legibility #witness #witnessing #PalestiniansLivesMatter #mourning #grievability #news #israelGaza #GazaWar #warOnGaza #bias #information #coverage #violence #stateViolence #war #Gaza #israelPalestine #IDF