color blindness and sound engineering

R

Randy Pence

Freshman
Oct 25, 2011
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Berlin, Germany
just had a frustrating phone call with a bar client who was trying to get sound out of his PA. Asked him about muted channels, xover settings, faulty cables, etc, etc. only to eventually find out that one of the mute buttons had been pressed, but since he is colorblind, he could not see the red led.

any of you with this feature? how do you get around it?
 
Re: color blindness and sound engineering

Big problem when your digital desk merely changes the colour of the button, rather than lights up only when muted/selected etc. My eyesight is poor with regards to contrast and it is very easy to miss a small led or a changed colour when in a hurry, only way that I can get round it is to be VERY careful when pressing buttons also I always try and find where the " touch this and all hell breaks loose" button is and keep well away from it G
 
Re: color blindness and sound engineering

Randy Pence said:
just had a frustrating phone call with a bar client who was trying to get sound out of his PA. Asked him about muted channels, xover settings, faulty cables, etc, etc. only to eventually find out that one of the mute buttons had been pressed, but since he is colorblind, he could not see the red led.

any of you with this feature? how do you get around it?
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Only thing I can think of that might actually help is to use an optical filter, such as a dark red gel, to increase the contrast with the surrounding field.

A rule followed by all serious user interface designers, as those who work in aerospace or for the military, is that critical information is never represented by color alone. Color is great for additional information, such as whether a condition is nominal, a warning, or a fault. Unfortunately such clear thinking has not come to all audio gear. Designers take note.

--Frank
 
Re: color blindness and sound engineering

I'm color blind and have a rather rare type other than the red/green that men typically have. I rarely have trouble with desks but computer screens running software like SMAART are a real PITA sometimes. I increase contrast when I can and have had to resort to switching to white on black displays at times. I find the easiest solution is just to make a screen monochromatic and go from there.
 
Re: color blindness and sound engineering

kristianjohnsen said:
Ooooh. Does the term "Coke-bottoms" exist in English, also? No offense to John or anyone else!:)
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Yes, it does, Kristian, and it does mean the same thing.

I'm sorry to see this, Silas. I do hope you find a solution for your eye ailments.

Over the winter, I thought I was going blind in one eye and rocked along with it, thinking that I was done driving trucks. Mixing had become a bit of a struggle and less enjoyable, to boot. It took my dumb ass 6 months to go to the doctor with my condition. That's when I was diagnosed with a cataract in that eye. When it was removed and the little lens inserted in my eye, the resulting vision was like a miracle! I was quite thankful for the way this situation turned out. In fact, this experience made me more conscious of taking care of my health in general.

Geri O
 
Re: color blindness and sound engineering

Tim McCulloch said:
Hook up with John Chiara. We call him "Blind Johnny" for a reason.... IIRC his uncorrected vision is something like 20/200.
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That's not really that bad.

A diopter (actual correction measurement) of -3.5 for eyeglasses correts for vision that would be classified at about 20/200 vision with no astigmatism. My contact perscription is -4.25 in one and -4.75 in the other with astigmatism of 1.5 at 10 degrees in one and 1.75 at 30 degrees in the other. Typically, contact perscriptions are not as severe as eyeglass perscriptions, so my eyeglass perscription is probably in the -5 region, though I don't know it off hand.

My vision is somewhere between 20/400 and 20/500 - it's not easy to determine for someone with astigmatism. According to my optometrist, vision this bad is not all that uncommon, and I'm still able to get contacts, and using polycarbonate lenses they aren't all that thick. I'm also still a good candidate for laser eye correction. My vision is so bad that if I went driving without correction, I would probably be charged with a first degree felony for attempted murder.

Back when I used to ride a motorbike, the wind caught my eyeglasses, and tore them off my face. That was a very scary situation. Needless to say, I took a permanent break from riding after that.
 
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