Ignoring COLORBLIND users in Windows Internet Explorer Testing Center

Dear CSS Testsuite Group,

Many pages and tests in Windows Internet Explorer Testing Center rely  
on color alone to determine whether a test passed or fail. This makes  
it impossible for many colorblind users to verify the out come of the  
test.

For example, I asked my colorblind friend Adam what color the text in  
the test linked below was, via email.  His answer: "I've looked at it  
a few times and each time I look at it it appears different. First it  
was green then red, and lately it's been brown."  As a Firefox user,  
he should be seeing green.

http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/csstestpages/frame_holder.html?url=./Chapter_4/declaration-whitespace-001.htm

All I ask is for such tests to use something other than color alone to  
demarcate passing or failing. In most cases this is very possible!  
Color + underline would be great.

As a quick hack, JavaScript could probably check for text reading  
"...should be green" and append to it "...and it is (pass)" or "...and  
it is not (fail)" based on the .style.color value of the text (note,  
Opera returns these values differently than Firefox; IDK about MSIE).

Thanks,
Alan Hogan

P.S.  Web developers can avoid this kind of problem completely if we  
just remember, "never use color alone."

Received on Thursday, 6 March 2008 21:29:10 UTC