Alternative Google Color Schemes

Following up on my earlier post about the lack of accessible Vista themes and my current feelings on standard internet color schemes, I posted the following to the accessible Google Group: Alternative Google Color Schemes - accessible | Google Groups

For the visually impaired, Google's (as well as MS and most websites) color scheme is downright bad. Does Google have or could it develop an alternative accessible co or scheme? Not only should it be high contrast, but also light-on-dark. For me, I like yellow-on-black. Firefox and IE allow users to impose color schemes while browsing, but this method changes all text and background to the same two colors. This ruins the full use of each page. For example, in Gmail, the star feature becomes useless.For another, regular text and hyperlinks become indistinguishable. So this solution is only partial. This remains true for other websites and for Windows as well. Both Vista and XP have high-contrast color schemes, but there are both aesthetically unappealing (Visually impaired does not equal aesthetically unaware) and more problematic then helpful. Is this something that Google could/will implement? Is this something a third-party could do well? There are some third party tools (e.g. Firefox's Accessibar), but none are subtle enough to retain the full nature of each web page. Is anyone up for the challenge? Thanks! PS Can someone create a nice Vista/XP theme with accessible and aesthetic colors and font sizes

I will relay any useful responses.

Zooming in the new IE

At first, I did not like the new Internet Explorer (IE). It buried the accessibility options I like most (text size and ignore colors specified on webpages). There is one new redeeming feature, the new zoom.

Zoom does what it says. Just like zooming in and out with your camera, zoom lets you magnify websites at any level of magnification you desire. I usually keep it between 125% and 200%, but it depends on the website. Very useful. Unlike text size, zoom works on all web pages. The only downside is that many pages will extend eve further off the right side of the screen. The solution for that has been to get a wide-screen monitor.

Zoom's official home is under the Pages menu right about my other favorite, text size.The excellent news is that there are two easier ways to access it. First, the bottom right corner of the IE window has a "change zoom level" drop down menu. Even better are the keyboard controls; Ctrl-+ to zoom in and Ctrl-- to zoom out.

Time to zoom away.

Internet Explorer: Increasing Font Size

For Internet Explorer (IE), click on Text Size in the View menu and select the appropriate size. Try out different sizes. In general, I choose Largest, but this can cause some web sites to display incorrectly. You will see when this happens if lines of text overlap each other, becoming unreadable. If this happens, reset the font size to something smaller and the problem should disappear.

The advantage here over Firefox is that IE will remember your font size preferences while Firefox does not. The drawback for IE is that there are only five font sizes to choose from, while Firefox has no limit.

Here is a link to Microsoft's instructions: Step by Step Tutorials for Internet Explorer 6: Increase or Decrease the Font Size of Web Pages Displayed on Screen.

Firefox vs. Internet Explorer: Accessibility

Firefox is a recently released alternative to Internet Explorer. Firefox is open source, meaning that Firefox and its underlying computer code are publicly available for free. It has a reputation for better security (less viruses, etc.) and better adherence to WWW standards (websites display more nicely).

In terms of ease of access, I find that both Firefox and IE have different problems, meaning that when one displays a page incorrectly, the other will probably display it correctly. So I go between the two programs depending on which sites I am looking at.

Sites like CNN and Netflix do not appear properly in IE for me, so I use Firefox for them. However, I like to keep several windows open at once. IE remembers my text size preferences when opening new windows. Firefox does not, so I have to increase the font size each time I open a new tab or a new window.

To sum up, I recommend using them both, switching between them when sites do not appear properly in one.

Contrast options in Internet Explorer

You can set Internet Explorer, known as IE, to use specific colors as well. In the Tools menu, select Internet Options. When you click on Colors, you will see this window. I recommend checking the Use Windows Colors box, but you can also specify your own color choices. Since I have set Windows to use my choice of colors already, I do not need to repeat this of IE. You need to take one further stop to force IE to always use your choice of colors. This will be the subject of one of my next posts. PS I change the unvisited link and hover colors since light blue is vary hard for me to see. It does not provide enough contrast. You may want to consider changing these for yourself.