Am I the only colorblind person using onshape?

sam113101

I've used onshape for many years, and since the beginning I've been telling myself, wow, they picked the worst colors possible for me and possibly other colorblind people too. Places where distinguishing between two colors is critical will often have colors that look the exact same to me. I never complained about it because I assumed that other people would and that the onshape team would eventually fix it. This has not been the case. In fact I think it got slightly worse with time.

I know designing a product for colorblind people can in a way make it less attractive to "normal" people, since it requires colors that contrast much more with each other. For example, a map of the world showing how rich/poor countries are might use different shades of red, but colorblind people might not see the different shades, and a map using different colors would be preferable, as well as adding other cues such as a pattern (horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines, etc.) in addition to the color. The map wouldn't be as pretty but a lot more people would be able to understand it. What the onshape team could do is to create a "colorblind" option that could be enabled in one's profile, and that would radically change the UI for this person only, without affecting those with a normal vision.

As for which colors need to be changed and what they need to be changed to, that would be answered more appropriately by a UI expert, one that specializes in "accessibility". I could tell you which colors or design choices give me trouble, and I don't mind doing it, but there are multiple types (as well as levels of severity) of colorblindness, and the colors we struggle with aren't the same. What would be a good choice of colors for me might be a terrible choice for another colorblind person.

david_mcmahon

Interesting topic. I also use Alibre and in their latest release they added three new menu pallets for different types of color blindness.

Cary_Bettenhausen

I have normal color vision but I do have a colleague with some degree of color blindness. If Onshape can do it for Simulations they should be able to do it for the regular UI (scroll to 30:45):

https://youtu.be/71WdbUIsRRM