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A color-blind user posted a feature-request on our English.SE site, asking for non-color-based visual cues to help distinguish the Meta site from the Main site.

I think it is an excellent request to accommodate users with poor color vision. Some of the suggestions on that user's request included

  • Making the "meta" more prominent in the title
  • Changing the question/answer separators
  • Changing the border around the question title

We haven't heard anything back about this feature request on our site, but it seems this would be helpful on the other SE sites as well.

And Robert Harvey, yes, actually, it would be helpful if ours were prominent, like on this site. Ours looks like this: Meta site header

which is pretty identical to the main: Main site header

except for the coloration and a weensy "meta" that can be easily overlooked if you can't see reds well. This is how the headers look to a red-green color-blind person, courtesy of http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ :

meta (protan)

main (protan)

And this is how they look in greyscale:

meta (greyscale)

main (greyscale)

Making it blink would be unnecessary.

Programmers, TeX, and Apple also have very similar Main and Meta banners, for instance (I think the TeX sites are particularly difficult to distinguish).

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  • 11
    You mean like the meta over the logo above? Maybe we could make it blink.
    – user102937
    Sep 5, 2012 at 14:47
  • 4
    @RobertHarvey On some sites, the “meta” bit in the logo is in comparatively small type, and less contrasted (I don't know how it looks to a color-blind user).
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Sep 5, 2012 at 14:58
  • Maybe something vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php would be useful? Though this site doesn't process images.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:11
  • That other question should have been tagged with "design", a tag Jin frequents and actively checks as far as I know.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:14
  • 3
    Also, beta sites use text, not graphics, for titles; there is only a single-letter difference between "Foo Beta" and "Foo Meta". I have to use CSS overrides for font colors and there's no way for me to color those differently (they're both links). This trips me up all the time. I realize it's a pretty special case, but if the fix for the color-blindness problem could also address my problem I'd be thrilled. For example (not necessarily the best approach), if the "meta" were either larger or smaller than the "beta" on the main site, that'd be a big clue.
    – Monica Cellio
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:20
  • @ChrisF colorfilter.wickline.org (supports images)
    – yannis
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:21
  • @YannisRizos idk what that is, but it is blocked at my office.
    – Naftali
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:27
  • @amanaPlanaCAnalPAnaMA Blame Jeff Zeldman, not me. Anyway I don't see anything wrong with the site, a false positive perhaps?
    – yannis
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:29
  • @YannisRizos possibly.
    – Naftali
    Sep 5, 2012 at 15:43
  • 3
    Arqade doesn't even say "meta"
    – Flyk
    Sep 6, 2012 at 14:59

1 Answer 1

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Some sites (like Stack Overflow and Server Fault) have GREAT BIG [META]s in their Meta logos.

Other sites like English have puny little [META]s.

I support [META] equality!

If elected I will impose a [META] tax on wealthier sites to help subsidize small family.... er - sorry, slipped into election mode there.

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