consider people with poor vision, was Re: F19 Installer a little better, but...[consider people with poor vision

[Gavin Flower]

On 15/06/13 16:22, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2013-06-14 12:53 (GMT-0700) Adam Williamson composed:
[...]
> Among the many other complaints other people have raised
>> about the installer, I don't recall one other person complaining about
>> text being too small.
>
> Do you think people in the business of developing software or 
> otherwise using a PC for most of any given work day are people whose 
> vision is below average? I don't. I think quite the opposite, that 
> those with poorer than average vision gravitate away from using a PC 
> screen any more than they must, that many won't do it at all, and that 
> few such people pursue occupations that require doing more than a 
> little that requires using a PC. Net result is most in the puter 
> business, including FOSS software testers, have both better than 
> average vision, and more importantly, little or no understanding of or 
> appreciation for the difficulties encountered by those who see less 
> well. People aren't complaining because the people doing are almost 
> entirely made up of a class of people with good vision, people who do 
> it because they don't have undue visual obstacles to doing it.
[...]
For several years, I often had very misty vision because the layer of 
cells above my cornea could not handle moisture properly. Sometimes it 
was so bad that I could hardly read the keyboard at 300mm, and glancing 
around the screen meant I could eassily miss things.  I remember 
concentrating hard to resolve whether a character was a comma ',' or a 
full stop '.' (similarly 'a' & 'e') - not good for a software developer.

I have had cataract surgery, and surgery to replace those layer of cells 
from grafts.  So now I can see the screen quite fine with glasses - even 
from a metre away, whereas previously I needed to be at 600mm or closer 
depending on how misty my eyes were.

Well I am 62 and still doing software development - so please do not put 
important things in small print and avoid dark grey text on a light grey 
background etc. (I can read it if I notice it, but I might miss its 
significant if I just glance at the screen).  When my eyes were misty, I 
often recognised things by their overall shape even when individual 
characters where fuzzy.

I am lucky (I know people who were a lot younger than I am, with much 
worse vision), I now can reduce fonts to less than their default sizes 
and see quite well, though I notice I tend to make browser text bigger. 
For me, what helped most (prior to my eye surgeries) was getting a 30" 
monitor. Now the biggest nuisance is swapping glasses: one for my 
laptop, one for my monitor, and no glasses required for walking around & 
driving.

In conclusion, there is a whole continuum between perfect vision & being 
blind.  So for really important things, especially if considered 
unexpected (either by new people - or people familiar with that screen, 
but something important has changed)  be carefully how the text is 
presented.


Cheers,
Gavin