Some time has passed since our recent software update, and, as with all rollouts, it was also a good moment to receive feedback. We have made adjustments based on feedback, available for preview now on our test server. Please feel free to take a look and leave your thoughts in the comments of this story. Keep the feedback coming!
Here are the changes we made along with motivations, including a bonus process tweak as well!
Brand Color and Accessibility
Lenawee Liberal points out that our new brand colors have too little contrast. There are two problems here. The first is the legibility issue for people with vision impairments. We have adjusted the new colors. The blue and grey shouldn’t look too different, however the brightness has been brought down to make the contrast with the white background pass the test of 4.5:1 contrast ratio. The second issue has to do with our design process. Accessibility is important for us, so we’re looking for a consultant that can better help us with these issues. If you or someone you know works in this space, please let us know! Also, our designer and lead quality assurance engineer have taken some time to brush up on accessibility standards.
Visited Link Color
BruniKid remarked about the grey we use to indicate visited links. Again, the contrast needs to be changed for legibility. We took the same 4.5:1 approach as we did with the brand color changes. Making two different shades of grey look different from each other is a difficult task. The grey we landed on seems to distinguish itself from the charcoal used for unread story links more than other greys.
Recommended Button
We have implemented this fantastically obvious suggestion— fantastically obvious after I read it, of course!— from CathiefromCanada. Previously, after recommending a story, the recommend button text would switch to “Unrecommed <number>”, which seems to suggest that that number of people have unrecommended the story. Even if Unrecommend were a word, this label would still be confusing. So, we are leaving the text ‘Recommend’ in both states, and simply changing color and adding or subtracting from the number to demonstrate that your button press registered. You can recommend some stories on our test server to see what you think.
One More Thing
I will return to writing posts about forthcoming design as well as previewing forthcoming changes on our test site more frequently. Most of our recent work has not been user facing, and I got out of the habit. So, hi! I’m back. Feel free to use the comments to ask about the development work we’ve done, and might be doing!
Friday, Apr 27, 2018 · 1:17:40 AM +00:00
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Jason Libsch
One design change I should have mentioned is that as part of the recommend button redesign, we have switched the color for the states. That is, before you recommend a story, the button will be orange and after you recommend a story the button will become white. This reversal of color state makes the recommended button similar in kind to the Facebook and Twitter buttons it sits next to, as well as a great number of other buttons on the site which are orange until pressed. Recommending is also the simplest action on site and one we want to encourage widely as a good contender for first step to becoming part of the community. So, we want the button to be prominent, which switching default color from white to orange should do.
As belinda ridgewood points out, we will need to switch the colors on the recommended buttons as well.