That time a red-green blind client told me my pie charts were useless

So I had this client feedback session last month where a guy said my dashboard was completely unreadable for him. He pointed at my red/green status indicators and said 'which one is good and which is bad?' I'd never even thought about it before. Switched to using icons plus patterns and text labels instead. Has anyone else gotten feedback that made you totally rethink a basic design choice you thought was fine?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana5519d ago

Did you ever ask him before building it if he had any color vision stuff going on, or was it just a total surprise when he brought it up? I've gotten burned by assuming everyone sees color the same way, especially with those red-green status lights that feel so obvious to most people. Patterns and icons are a solid fix though, did you go with simple stuff like stripes and dots or something more specific to the actual status?

nora73519d ago

Did you just assume he was seeing the same green and red that you were? Yeah, that's a rough one, I totally get it. I mean, it's so easy to forget that not everyone's eyes work the same way, especially when you're deep in a project. I've definitely had my own facepalm moments with those red-green lights too, it's like they're the default for everything. Patterns are such a smart workaround though, I'd probably go with simple stripes and dots just to keep it clean and obvious. Honestly, it's good you caught it now instead of after he was stuck using it for weeks.