[OSM-talk] Analysis and improvement of the OpenStreetMap street color scheme for users with color vision deficiencies

Johannes Kröger johannes.kroeger at hcu-hamburg.de
Mon Jul 15 09:57:01 UTC 2013


Hi everyone,

almost a whole year ago I asked for participation in an online survey
for my bachelor thesis on the colors of street classes in the
Mapnik/Standard map style for users with color vision deficiencies.
First of all, thanks again to the many participants!

Back then I had planned to release the results and text right after I
got my grade but then it grew into a paper for the International
Cartographic Conference 2013 in Dresden and I was not sure if I was
allowed to share before the conference. So I didn't. Long story short:
The conference is in a month and the proceedings are now online
(http://www.icc2013.org/?node=29)! :-)

The Paper:
http://hannes.enjoys.it/pub/Johannes%20Kr%C3%B6ger,%20Jochen%20Schiewe%20&%20Beate%20Weninger%20-%20Analysis%20and%20improvement%20of%20the%20OpenStreetMap%20street%20color%20scheme%20for%20users%20with%20color%20vision%20deficiencies%20(2013,%20Proceedings%20of%20the%2026th%20International%20Cartographic%20Conference,%20Dresden).pdf
==
http://www.icc2013.org/_contxt/_medien/_upload/_proceeding/357_proceeding.pdf

My bachelor thesis (in german):
http://hannes.enjoys.it/pub/Johannes%20Kr%C3%B6ger%20-%20Weiterentwicklung%20von%20OpenStreetMap-Farbschemata%20f%C3%BCr%20Nutzer%20mit%20Farbsinnst%C3%B6rungen%20(2012,%20Bachelorarbeit).pdf


If you come to ICC, you can see me in a cold sweat in the "Colours in
Map Design" Session:
http://www.icc2013.org/_contxt/programme/default_session.asp?node=34&day=&sessionID=54

Ignore the image saying "Legende" by mistake, it is german for "Legend"
or "Map Key". Oopsie! ;)

If anybody is genuinely interested in the raw data from the online
survey, I will release it. I do not want to invest time in proper
anonymisation of the data sets right now if there is no need.

I am open for any kind of comments and criticism and love to
discuss the topic!

My own conclusion was that "my colors" looked too out of place in the
map and thus I did not want to suggest them as changes. Maybe this is
just me though, so if you think differently, please say so! In my
opinion it would be much more reasonable to design a whole new dedicated
accessibility style (to not "only" cover color vision but also take
general bad sight into account). I would be interested in working on
that collaboratively in case others would like to.

Cheers, Hannes



More information about the talk mailing list