[1878] Accessibility: Colorblindness; trust ratings on new nameplates
interested
Austen_
This is only technically related to the beta because it is something that only became relevant due to the layout change. It was something that could have been nice in the past, but unnecessary since there was support next to them before:
The shield icons that represent a user's trust rating are not setup to be colorblind friendly, but the avatar performance rating icons are. With the old nameplates, there was text clearly stating the trust rating next to the icon, but in the new nameplates, they are only represented with the icon. The problem is that these icons look exactly the same for every trust rating, and the only difference is the color. Colorblind friendly design holds heavy importance in being able to differentiate something in grayscale as well, if you are designing it in a mindful way.
The avatar performance rating symbols are seemingly made to be intentionally colorblind friendly in their designs (Star on excellent, circle in-fill expands outward as the rating gets worse, and then an exclamation point for very poor). I think it would be a change of interest to come up with new designs for the trust ratings on the nameplates, to support us colorblind people!
A suggestion could be something as simple as an increasing number of hash marks on the existing shields as the rank increases, and the friend one getting something special.
Image attached to show the trust and performance symbols in greyscale, for examples. If you can't tell which is which in the image without the words, neither can a lot of regular players!
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Tupper - VRChat Head of Community
updated the status to
interested
The performance icons were built to be distinguishable by shape and the trust shields weren't, and dropping the text label next to them on the new nameplate made that worse.
We acknowledge these can create new legibility concerns and will explore improving the contrast and visibility for these icons.
OwenTheProgram
Tupper - VRChat Head of Community you could always have the first letter as a cutout into the shield icon itself, so F for friend, T for trusted, etc. FTKUNV all unique letters
Austen_
Tupper - VRChat Head of Community
I missed your reply until just now, but it's all entirely fair. I don't expect every single thing made to be mindful of colorblind people, but always like to push for awareness when I notice something isn't (or if it loses the band-aid that allows it to be like in this case)😁
To be fully honest, I think my "real" opinion is that the trust rating system is probably not relevant often enough to be broadcast on someone's nameplate, and more often gets used in a way to assist people to discriminate based on hours played. So an alternative "fix" in the end could just as easily be removing the shield entirely from the nameplate and just having trust ratings only be visible on the user profile screen (where it still has the text, and thus makes everyone equal opportunity in the steps to see it). Kinda two birds, one stone in that regard. Makes the trust rating less noteworthy by hiding it away while also having the primary resource to check that be colorblind friendly since it's written out.
Аleх
Austen_ prejudice serves a purpose