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#1
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Hello,
A brand new, free Excel add-in is available from my website that may be of help to color blind Excel users. "Determine Colors" adds a new menu item to the cell right-click popup menu that displays the color name for the cell ... interior color pattern color border color font color plus the sheet tab color (where applicable). Comes with a brief Word.doc install/use file. Download from (no registration required) ... http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware Comments and suggestions about the program solicited. -- Jim Cone San Francisco, USA |
#2
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Jim,
Haven't tried it, but how about tying it into the speech add-in and get it to echo back the colours? Now that would be useful. -- HTH Bob Phillips (replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct) "Jim Cone" wrote in message ... Hello, A brand new, free Excel add-in is available from my website that may be of help to color blind Excel users. "Determine Colors" adds a new menu item to the cell right-click popup menu that displays the color name for the cell ... interior color pattern color border color font color plus the sheet tab color (where applicable). Comes with a brief Word.doc install/use file. Download from (no registration required) ... http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware Comments and suggestions about the program solicited. -- Jim Cone San Francisco, USA |
#3
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Bob,
Interesting concept, however, I have avoided all contact with the Speech capabilities in Excel. Doubt if I will change now. As simple as it may sound, the existing Determine Colors program was very difficult to write. Peter Thornton's invaluable help is the only reason it was completed. For some fun, try to determine the actual border color displayed when there are three different colors applied to the same edge. <g Regards, Jim Cone "Bob Phillips" wrote in message Jim, Haven't tried it, but how about tying it into the speech add-in and get it to echo back the colours? Now that would be useful. -- HTH Bob Phillips (replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct) "Jim Cone" wrote in message ... Hello, A brand new, free Excel add-in is available from my website that may be of help to color blind Excel users. "Determine Colors" adds a new menu item to the cell right-click popup menu that displays the color name for the cell ... interior color pattern color border color font color plus the sheet tab color (where applicable). Comes with a brief Word.doc install/use file. Download from (no registration required) ... http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware Comments and suggestions about the program solicited. -- Jim Cone San Francisco, USA |
#4
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Jim,
I will download and play, but getting back to the speech addin, MS are putting a lot of effort into it, so it may be getting easier to use. Can't say as I haven't tried it yet, but it is on my to-do list. -- HTH Bob Phillips (replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct) "Jim Cone" wrote in message ... Bob, Interesting concept, however, I have avoided all contact with the Speech capabilities in Excel. Doubt if I will change now. As simple as it may sound, the existing Determine Colors program was very difficult to write. Peter Thornton's invaluable help is the only reason it was completed. For some fun, try to determine the actual border color displayed when there are three different colors applied to the same edge. <g Regards, Jim Cone "Bob Phillips" wrote in message Jim, Haven't tried it, but how about tying it into the speech add-in and get it to echo back the colours? Now that would be useful. -- HTH Bob Phillips (replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct) "Jim Cone" wrote in message ... Hello, A brand new, free Excel add-in is available from my website that may be of help to color blind Excel users. "Determine Colors" adds a new menu item to the cell right-click popup menu that displays the color name for the cell ... interior color pattern color border color font color plus the sheet tab color (where applicable). Comes with a brief Word.doc install/use file. Download from (no registration required) ... http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware Comments and suggestions about the program solicited. -- Jim Cone San Francisco, USA |
#5
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Interesting item, and one of the few instances of a relevant product plug
that I've ever seen on a newsgroup. I would point out that 3% of the male population in predominantly caucasian countries are colour-blind, most being red-green 'dichromats' who have difficulty distinguishing colours in the red-yellow-green part of the spectrum, and a small minority (less than half a percent) being 'monochromats' who live in a completely colourless world. We are obliged by law, in any G7 country, to cater for disabled people in all applications offered for use by the general public. Most large corporations have specific disability and 'accessibilty' policies that require us take account of colour-blindness (and, in theory, users unable to operate a pointing device) and the only reason that many of us have escaped prosecution or discipliniary hearings is that the affected users are very skilled at circumventing bad interface design and don't realise that they can and should complain. For dichromats, the theoretical solution is to use the Workbook.Colors() property to shift the entire palette, colour by colour, up or down into the frequency range that these users can discriminate, leaving larger 'band gaps' around mission-critical colour replacements for red and green if they are used for common warnings or data verification cues. Be warned, the calculations are not trivial! The practical solution is to design your application so that colour cues (especially red and green conditional formatting) are *never* the only cues presented to the user. In the case of conditional formatting, change the font and the border whenever you change the background colour! For monochromats, it's usually best to give them this code snippet to impose a custom palette, and let them reformat their workbooks On Open: Public Sub SetPalette(Optional wbk As Excel.Workbook) On Error Resume Next If wbk Is Nothing Then Set wbk = ThisWorkbook End If Application.ScreenUpdating = False With wbk ' Pale grey colour gradient ' Target: top row of the two hidden rows in the palette dialogue .Colors(17) = &HF0F0F0 .Colors(18) = &HE0E0E0 .Colors(19) = &HD0D0D0 .Colors(20) = &HC0C0C0 .Colors(21) = &HB0B0B0 .Colors(22) = &HA0A0A0 .Colors(23) = &H909090 .Colors(24) = &H808080 ' Grey semitones ' Target: bottom row of the two hidden rows in the palette dialogue .Colors(25) = &HF8F8F8 .Colors(26) = &HE8E8E8 .Colors(27) = &HD8D8D8 .Colors(28) = &HC8C8C8 .Colors(29) = &HB8B8B8 .Colors(30) = &HA8A8A8 .Colors(31) = &H989898 .Colors(32) = &H888888 ' Redistribute the main greyscale sequence in ' the right-hand column of the default palette: .Colors(15) = &HC0C0C0 .Colors(48) = &H707070 .Colors(16) = &H606060 .Colors(56) = &H404040 End With Application.ScreenUpdating = True End Sub It's not a complete solution but those users will soon figure out how and where to attack the main palette, replacing &HFF0000, &H00FF00 and &H0000FF with differing greyscales. Go back and see the results: it is a humbling experience to discover that they have come up with better visual design solutions than you did. |
#6
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
An interesting post, my understanding is considerably more than 3% are
affected to some degree. For dichromats, the theoretical solution is to use the Workbook.Colors() property to shift the entire palette, colour by colour, up or down into the frequency range that these users can discriminate, leaving larger 'band gaps' around mission-critical colour replacements for red and green if they are used for common warnings or data verification cues. Be warned, the calculations are not trivial! As it happens I have an app in development that does all that, even 'shift' multiple colours in one go and in various ways until user finds colours sufficiently separated. Many other related things which might be of use to those with colour vision impairment. These though just some side effects large application which does much else besides colour. Unlike Jim's though it's not intended as a free product. As you seem to be interested in this subject if you would care to try the early beta drop me a line. Regards, Peter T pmbthornton gmail com "Nile_Hef" wrote in message ... Interesting item, and one of the few instances of a relevant product plug that I've ever seen on a newsgroup. I would point out that 3% of the male population in predominantly caucasian countries are colour-blind, most being red-green 'dichromats' who have difficulty distinguishing colours in the red-yellow-green part of the spectrum, and a small minority (less than half a percent) being 'monochromats' who live in a completely colourless world. We are obliged by law, in any G7 country, to cater for disabled people in all applications offered for use by the general public. Most large corporations have specific disability and 'accessibilty' policies that require us take account of colour-blindness (and, in theory, users unable to operate a pointing device) and the only reason that many of us have escaped prosecution or discipliniary hearings is that the affected users are very skilled at circumventing bad interface design and don't realise that they can and should complain. For dichromats, the theoretical solution is to use the Workbook.Colors() property to shift the entire palette, colour by colour, up or down into the frequency range that these users can discriminate, leaving larger 'band gaps' around mission-critical colour replacements for red and green if they are used for common warnings or data verification cues. Be warned, the calculations are not trivial! The practical solution is to design your application so that colour cues (especially red and green conditional formatting) are *never* the only cues presented to the user. In the case of conditional formatting, change the font and the border whenever you change the background colour! For monochromats, it's usually best to give them this code snippet to impose a custom palette, and let them reformat their workbooks On Open: Public Sub SetPalette(Optional wbk As Excel.Workbook) On Error Resume Next If wbk Is Nothing Then Set wbk = ThisWorkbook End If Application.ScreenUpdating = False With wbk ' Pale grey colour gradient ' Target: top row of the two hidden rows in the palette dialogue .Colors(17) = &HF0F0F0 .Colors(18) = &HE0E0E0 .Colors(19) = &HD0D0D0 .Colors(20) = &HC0C0C0 .Colors(21) = &HB0B0B0 .Colors(22) = &HA0A0A0 .Colors(23) = &H909090 .Colors(24) = &H808080 ' Grey semitones ' Target: bottom row of the two hidden rows in the palette dialogue .Colors(25) = &HF8F8F8 .Colors(26) = &HE8E8E8 .Colors(27) = &HD8D8D8 .Colors(28) = &HC8C8C8 .Colors(29) = &HB8B8B8 .Colors(30) = &HA8A8A8 .Colors(31) = &H989898 .Colors(32) = &H888888 ' Redistribute the main greyscale sequence in ' the right-hand column of the default palette: .Colors(15) = &HC0C0C0 .Colors(48) = &H707070 .Colors(16) = &H606060 .Colors(56) = &H404040 End With Application.ScreenUpdating = True End Sub It's not a complete solution but those users will soon figure out how and where to attack the main palette, replacing &HFF0000, &H00FF00 and &H0000FF with differing greyscales. Go back and see the results: it is a humbling experience to discover that they have come up with better visual design solutions than you did. |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Hi Jim,
Nice work. I did a very quick and dirty test with the speech method, as Bob mentioned. If you can not already use speech in excel via the Tools Speech option this will not work. Format a cell and then do the right click and view the information. This will then load all the correct settings in to the captions of the context menu. (Obviously with your access to the code this step would be redundant). Then in the immediate window enter the following line. for i=1 to 4:application.Speech.Speak _ application.CommandBars("Cell").Controls(_ "Colo&r Information").controls(i).caption:next i You have probably already seen this... http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/arch...ing-worksheet/ Cheers Andy Jim Cone wrote: Bob, Interesting concept, however, I have avoided all contact with the Speech capabilities in Excel. Doubt if I will change now. As simple as it may sound, the existing Determine Colors program was very difficult to write. Peter Thornton's invaluable help is the only reason it was completed. For some fun, try to determine the actual border color displayed when there are three different colors applied to the same edge. <g Regards, Jim Cone "Bob Phillips" wrote in message Jim, Haven't tried it, but how about tying it into the speech add-in and get it to echo back the colours? Now that would be useful. -- Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel http://www.andypope.info |
#8
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Andy,
Thanks for posting that link. I had not seen it. I may yet get sucked into doing something with speech. Regards, Jim Cone "Andy Pope" wrote in message ... Hi Jim, Nice work. I did a very quick and dirty test with the speech method, as Bob mentioned. If you can not already use speech in excel via the Tools Speech option this will not work. Format a cell and then do the right click and view the information. This will then load all the correct settings in to the captions of the context menu. (Obviously with your access to the code this step would be redundant). Then in the immediate window enter the following line. for i=1 to 4:application.Speech.Speak _ application.CommandBars("Cell").Controls(_ "Colo&r Information").controls(i).caption:next i You have probably already seen this... http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/arch...ing-worksheet/ Cheers Andy Jim Cone wrote: Bob, Interesting concept, however, I have avoided all contact with the Speech capabilities in Excel. Doubt if I will change now. As simple as it may sound, the existing Determine Colors program was very difficult to write. Peter Thornton's invaluable help is the only reason it was completed. For some fun, try to determine the actual border color displayed when there are three different colors applied to the same edge. <g Regards, Jim Cone "Bob Phillips" wrote in message Jim, Haven't tried it, but how about tying it into the speech add-in and get it to echo back the colours? Now that would be useful. -- Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel http://www.andypope.info |
#9
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
An interesting post, my understanding is considerably more than 3% are
affected to some degree. The 3% figure holds good for the adult male population of the United Kingdom and the continental USA, and it is the number quoted by Ben Shneiderman in 'Designing the User Interface'. Some places have higher incidences of dichromat colour-blindness: Wikipedia quotes an 8% figure for Australia! I've only ever written a spectrum-shifter as bespoke code for Excel users on a 'by request' basis and I had to work it all out from scratch - the worst part being the need for a hand-rolled 'effective wavelength' metric for RBG codes as perceived by healthy trichromat humans. Those neat triple bell-curves of frequency versus sensitivity for the human retina are the start of a very, very messy calculation. The code is owned by a former employer of mine and will never see the light of day again. I've asked if I can put it in the public domain and all I ever got was boilerplate pro-forma statements about banking confidentiality and the threat of legal action. Anyway, your idea of a user-configurable frequency shift is an interesting approach, and a surprisingly difficult user interface design problem: none of the popular graphics packages (Paintshop Pro, Adobe, CorelDraw) has a colour manipulation dialogue that does exactly what you want with images, and GIMP has a particularly loathsome 'curves' screen under the colour tools menu. I am not the most systematic and disciplined of beta-testers but I'd enjoy seeing your application. I can't get at my personal mail accounts from the trading floor, but feel free to mail me as Heffernann yah oo dot com Regards - Nile |
#10
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Excel add-in that may help the color blind
Hi Nile,
I've followed this ng for some years and yours was first post I've read to give informed comment on the issue of colour blindness. Apart of course from Jim's addin. Whether 3% are affected or nearer 10% (the average of various articles I've read) is immaterial. Even 1% of Excel users represents a very large number. I'm surprised this issue as relates to Excel has not been discussed more, eg traffic light red & green are frequently used and liable to confuse. But others are affected by different combinations. It seems to me there are two solutions: - Ensure all spreadsheets use colours that can never be confused, I think unrealistic. - Affected user adjust colours to suit. In Excel it's is very easy to customise the palette and in turn update colours in use in the workbook. Except it isn't as Excel provides a minimal and laborious interface to do that, nor an indication of used colours other than in the selection. Whilst I'd never advocate over use of colour in a spreadsheet, Excel has fantastic and un-exploited possibilities for doing things with colour. For certain purposes more useful even than other applications designed specifically for colour processing. I have also written to you off-line. Regards, Peter T "Nile_Hef" wrote in message ... An interesting post, my understanding is considerably more than 3% are affected to some degree. The 3% figure holds good for the adult male population of the United Kingdom and the continental USA, and it is the number quoted by Ben Shneiderman in 'Designing the User Interface'. Some places have higher incidences of dichromat colour-blindness: Wikipedia quotes an 8% figure for Australia! I've only ever written a spectrum-shifter as bespoke code for Excel users on a 'by request' basis and I had to work it all out from scratch - the worst part being the need for a hand-rolled 'effective wavelength' metric for RBG codes as perceived by healthy trichromat humans. Those neat triple bell-curves of frequency versus sensitivity for the human retina are the start of a very, very messy calculation. The code is owned by a former employer of mine and will never see the light of day again. I've asked if I can put it in the public domain and all I ever got was boilerplate pro-forma statements about banking confidentiality and the threat of legal action. Anyway, your idea of a user-configurable frequency shift is an interesting approach, and a surprisingly difficult user interface design problem: none of the popular graphics packages (Paintshop Pro, Adobe, CorelDraw) has a colour manipulation dialogue that does exactly what you want with images, and GIMP has a particularly loathsome 'curves' screen under the colour tools menu. I am not the most systematic and disciplined of beta-testers but I'd enjoy seeing your application. I can't get at my personal mail accounts from the trading floor, but feel free to mail me as Heffernann yah oo dot com Regards - Nile |
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