Andy Li's Blog

Select color blind type from the menu.

Accessibility is a an important part of both web and game design. And for web and game design, one of the popular tool is Flash. That means very often you need to ensure accessibility in Flash. However there are still not many tools available even for simple things like color blind simulation… so I write my own:)

>> download installer (.air)

It’s a very simple AIR app. You open it, drop a swf file on its window, select the color blind type and that’s it.

The inner of Colorblink is using a Pixel Bender filter, applying to the whole application. The algorithm is just a color transform matrix, found in a Java Color-Blindness Simulators. That simulator have more simulation config, which I used only the simplest one.

This is also my first time using a git repo. So go to have a look, see if you can fork it for more features.

One thing is, there is problem loading Flex applications into Colorblink… I don’t know how to read the loaded app’s default width and height and then resize it… So, if you want to test your Flex app, get the filter and apply it to your app manually (can’t be easier).
Now you can load Flex swf or even html file! But the app wouldn’t resize automatically since the size cannot be determined. If Colorblink does not work for you, you can still always get the filter and apply it to your app manually (can’t be easier).

Oh, yes, there is a simulation of what a dog sees… So, design some game for your dogs in your free time…

Concept image from The Flash Blog demostrates iPad's ultimate browsing experience.

Steve Jobs says the iPad is “Amazing, Awesome, Beautiful, Great, Incredible, Really Nice and Unbelievable”. I’m sure you wanna try it. If you still haven’t get one to experience by yourself, here I made a little GreaseMonkey script for you to feel it first.

Once you installed the iPad experience script on FireFox (or any other browser that can use user script), you wouldn’t see any Flash elements again. No more Flash can hurt you or your children. Instead, all the swfs are replaced with a “Amazing, Awesome, Beautiful, Great, Incredible, Really Nice and Unbelievable” blue lego, reminding you the glory of Apple.

Update:
You can use it in Chrome now (if you have extension enabled)!

Here we have many lifts in Hong Kong since we have so many tall buildings. One of the lift I am using very often is the one inside Festival Walk(a shopping mall). Here are its buttons:

First of all, the mixed use of letters and numbers (also an icon) to name floor is confusing. I have seen many people had difficulty finding the right floor at first sight. If there were tens of floors which goes from lower-ground 5 to upper-ground 25, grouping the floors with something like “UG” and “LG” would be meaningful. But as you can see in the photo, there are only seven floors… So actually I cannot really tell it is some kind of grouping as the group has at most two members only… And for “UG”, I really don’t know why they’re not naming the “1″ and “2″ with “UG” as “UG1″,”UG2″,”UG3″. Or simply use “1″,”2″,”3″? You also need to think if “LG2″ or “LG1″ is upper floor.

Secondly, not all Hong Kong people know “LG” and “UG” stand for “lower-ground” and “upper-ground”. I have some friends misunderstood “UG” as underground… The users are mostly Hong Kong people which are not having English as native language. Anyway I don’t see a point why not use “-1″, “0″, “1″, “2″…

Lastly, the arrangement of the grid is confusing. The arrangement is different from written English(left to right, top to bottom) or traditional Chinese(top to bottom, right to left). See below:

Not only Festival Walk, but also City University of Hong Kong has this arrangment:

Is that only Hong Kong has these kind of lift? If so, maybe that’s because we Hong Kong people are proud to have both Western and Chinese culture which expressed in lift button arrangement?

Update:
I finally have found another example of the arrangement, that is… Japanese comic?!