UKC

Can coloured lines in topos cause problems for people with colour blindness? Is it a wide enough problem that it's better avoiding coloured lines and risk compromising the clarity of the topos?

I have drawn some topos using a few different styles, you can compare them here http://threerockbooks.com/index.php/colour-blindness-topos/

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

'Colour blindness' is normally just a difficulty to distinguish between reds/greens/browns and is generally mild with just a few colours being confused. Even complete red-green colour deficiency is pretty rare, the common types are pretty subtle. Absolute colour blindness is incredibly rare.

Sorry if you already know all this!

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

Good idea for me, the most clear for my colourblind eyesight are options 1 or 2

Thanks

In reply to jasper11:

What sort of colour deficiency have you got? Strong red/green?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Hi pretty poor definition for red, brown, green and any shade in between

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

With different contrast levels and texture you can get round any issues pretty easily and you can send them to colour blind test websites to evaluate if they are OK.

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

We chenged the colours on out topos a few books back because of some feedback from folks struggling to see them. We went from red dash (with no colour between) to red/white (trad) and red/yellow (sport).


Chris

In reply to Dave Flanagan:
My color blindness is fairly slight and they are all ok to me, although I find 2 and 4 the clearest by a small margin. The one thing I do struggle with is if the dashes are different colors depending on type of route or grade: if the dashes are too small I can't tell what the background color is meant to be and if the lines run too close together I can't differentiate between the colors all the time. So I would possibly have more trouble with the system Chris has explained above than any of your examples. Obviously it's hard to constructively comment on what Chris said he uses without actually looking at the topos in question so they may be perfectly clear but it's layouts like that which I have found unclear in the past.

In reply to Stuart Williams:

The left-hand topo on the middle sample page here has both examples:

http://www.rockfax.com/climbing-guides/books/north-wales-climbs/

I think the printed page tends to be clearer/sharper than a screen though,



Chris

In reply to Stuart Williams:

Thanks everyone. I find that the red and white dashed lines - a la Rockfax - work very well in most settings, the lines tend to jump out. Just using white lines works well most of the time but if the image is fairly light there can be problems.

I will check out those colour blind test websites to get some idea what they look like. Whether the lines are recognised as red isn't important once they stand out from the background.

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

Thanks for doing this research Dave. I like 2 and 4 (with a preference for the solid white in 4). The old style Rockfax red dashes is the worst for me and much of the time is invisible so pleased to hear from Chris Craggs that a new format has been developed. Looking at the new Rockfax convention in Chris’ link I only really see the white dashes because the red is almost invisible so the new system gives an option for people who see red and for people who don't - a good idea. Generally I find the use of colour to convey meaning (e.g. easy or hard etc.) is not helpful - e.g. Rockfax use coloured circles with numbers in on the route descriptions and vary the colour to indicate a grad range - using a range of shapes as well as colour would help e.g. circle for "green" routes, square for "orange", triangle, diamond etc. would create an option for people with imperfect colour vision.

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

Many thanks for thinking of us with super-Daltonic vision. I pity the rest of you with all those bright colours leaping out at you all the time.

My main problem is red on green (eg, ripe hawthorn berries, strawberries on the plants, bright red Goretex jackets on hillsides.... and topo lines in FRCC guidebooks. I can only see red lines on ink or shaded drawings with much peering and holding up to the light at different angles. The SMC guides have some routes as red lines on photo's - so faint for me they are partially invisible.

However, your choice of colours in the 4 examples you linked to are all ok for me - mainly because there is no red.

Thanks to Rockfax for changing the colours as a result of feedback.

Anyway, now back to trying to see the hypothetical numbers that opticians wind me up by pretending are on those spotty Ishihara colour blind tests... I'm sure they always give me the misprints...

Lex

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

Its not just guide books I have problems with, while at climbing walls have trouble knowing what holds are in or out if a green route is set next to a red route espesialy if the holds are covered in chalk and the colours dont dtand out very well.

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

In Adobe Illustrator you can preview what you are working on in two different colour blindness modes.

In reply to The Pylon King:

Thanks, I just realised that. Useful feature.

1 and 2 for me, with a slight preference for 2. I have a bit of red and green colour blindness, I don't know where I am on any kind of scale but I sometimes struggle with the red lines on older Rockfax guides, seeing someone wearing red far away, finding cricket balls in hedges and that sort of thing.

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

My topos generate the route lines dynamically and the user can choose line colour, style, and width. Allows them to get the easiest one for them. This is an online topo (obviously).

In reply to Russell Lovett:
I have the same problem and it gets worse in poor light conditions, often near the top or a route; @ Awesome walls Liverpool, red, green, browns all look the same especially if dirty.

to the op: the colour of the rock type you have chosen makes it fairly easy to see the route , but if you have a darker image with dark rock like sandstone and put red lines on it, I will have difficulty and in poor light conditions I can not trace the route, Rockfax was bad for this in the western grit guide. the new Wales guide is better
but lately I had a problem seeing a route on Dinas Mot in the new CC guide.

In reply to Dave Flanagan:

Hi Dave - I'm quite colour blind, red/green - I was having to get my kids to look at a walking trail map at a National Trust property recently, because they had used colours for the trails that all just looked kind of brown-ish to me.

I think I have noticed that I couldn't distinguish topo lines before easily, but I can't remember which guide now. Looking at yours all are ok because you're not mixing greens and reds, but I think the lines in no.2 are the easiest to see.

In reply to gd303uk:

Yep, another colour blind person who finds indoor wall climbing annoying as I'm always having to ask my belayer "which is the red hold for my foot?" It's great to hear other people with the same problems! Have just moved to Sheffield and had to have my wife point out the glorious purple heather moors when we first went out to the Peak. A bit of squinting and taking sunglasses off/on I could see it. Last night it had changed colour a bit (or sunlight at another angle?) and I could see it much better - really was glorious!

In reply to TobyA:

Not colourblind, but at one wall I go to problems overlap on the boulder in the same colour, so the problem will be 'red core holds, not the red screw-ons, not the red triangles'. I assume colourblind people have to learn similar things (provided adjacent routes are set with different sets of holds)?

Setting at climbing walls can be a nightmare, particularly if the lighting isn't very good. I was once asked to strip some problems from a dark overhang. I was only asked to remove one but the grey, purple and some other colour all looked the same. The worst was at Craggy Island in Guildford though where some bright spark had set three routes on one line using red holds, white holds and red and white holds. That's not even a colour blind issue though, just a pain in the arse.

In reply to gd303uk:

When the rock is quite red I plan to use green instead of red but won't use both in the same topo.

In reply to TobyA:


I think this is probably the main thing to avoid?