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

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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

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