SSMRecolor: improving recoloring tools with situation-specific models of color differentiation

TY - GEN

T1 - SSMRecolor

T2 - 30th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2012

AU - Flatla, David R.

AU - Gutwin, Carl

PY - 2012/5/5

Y1 - 2012/5/5

N2 - Color is commonly used to convey information in digital environments, but colors can be difficult to distinguish for many users - either because of a congenital color vision deficiency (CVD), or because of situation-induced CVDs such as wearing colored glasses or working in sunlight. Tools intended to improve color differentiability (recoloring tools) exist, but these all use abstract models of only a few types of congenital CVD; if the user's color problems have a different cause, existing recolorers can perform poorly. We have developed a recoloring tool (SSMRecolor) based on the idea of situation-specific modeling - in which we build a performance-based model of a particular user in their specific environment, and use that model to drive the recoloring process. SSMRecolor covers a much wider range of CVDs, including acquired and situational deficiencies. We evaluated SSMRecolor and two existing tools in a controlled study of people's color-matching performance in several environmental conditions. The study included participants with and without congenital CVD. Our results show both accuracy and response time in color-matching tasks were significantly better with SSMRecolor. This work demonstrates the value of a situation-specific approach to recoloring, and shows that this technique can substantially improve the usability of color displays for users of all types.

AB - Color is commonly used to convey information in digital environments, but colors can be difficult to distinguish for many users - either because of a congenital color vision deficiency (CVD), or because of situation-induced CVDs such as wearing colored glasses or working in sunlight. Tools intended to improve color differentiability (recoloring tools) exist, but these all use abstract models of only a few types of congenital CVD; if the user's color problems have a different cause, existing recolorers can perform poorly. We have developed a recoloring tool (SSMRecolor) based on the idea of situation-specific modeling - in which we build a performance-based model of a particular user in their specific environment, and use that model to drive the recoloring process. SSMRecolor covers a much wider range of CVDs, including acquired and situational deficiencies. We evaluated SSMRecolor and two existing tools in a controlled study of people's color-matching performance in several environmental conditions. The study included participants with and without congenital CVD. Our results show both accuracy and response time in color-matching tasks were significantly better with SSMRecolor. This work demonstrates the value of a situation-specific approach to recoloring, and shows that this technique can substantially improve the usability of color displays for users of all types.

KW - Accessibility

KW - Color

KW - Color vision deficiency

KW - Recoloring

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84862103131

U2 - 10.1145/2207676.2208388

DO - 10.1145/2207676.2208388

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:84862103131

SN - 9781450310154

SP - 2297

EP - 2306

BT - CHI '12 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York, USA

Y2 - 5 May 2012 through 10 May 2012

ER -