Color Blindness and HP Prime keys color choice

[inakiz]

Hi.
I am slightly color blind to some colors and have found the HP-Primer color keys choice an absolute pain in the ass for me!
I have dozens of HP calculators and never suffered from this 'blindness' before!
In particular I try hard to distinguish the letters below the numerical pad.

I can figure out I am not the only one, am I ?

[Geoff Quickfall]

No, you are not alone. In fact the beta testers complained and actually picked a colour scheme that existed on a prototype that was much higher in contrast. Saw one and it was perfect.

Even though the beta testers voted unanimously for the higher contrast, marketing has won out.

Sad really, as any low light environment would mimic your colour blindness.

Cheers, Geoff

[jgreenb2]

Totally right. The software bugs will be ironed out but the key contrast is here to stay. It's the biggest flaw on the Prime. Both the blue and especially the orange are nearly impossible for me to see against the gray numeric keys in anything but the brightest light.

[Han]

The HP35S had a pretty good color scheme -- what do the folks who are color blind think of that scheme (I'm just curious).

[Craig Thomas]

HP35s colors...much as it's my least favorite HP, it uses classic excellent colors. Perhaps the same as the HP48SX.

The Prime colors are cute...in ideal conditions and for young eyes. Many classrooms and study halls won't be...ideally lit. So perhaps even 20 year old eyes will grow to dislike the colors as well.

I'd still appreciate hearing about the Prime Manual.

Major or minor updates on the way? Or is it considered a finished product?

[Kevin Ouellet]

I'M still hoping that eventually, HP releases a new redesign of the HP Prime. After all, if TI had over 20 different looking TI-83 Pluses, then why couldn't HP have a second HP Prime? The hardware would stay the same, just the keys would become easier to read. Besides, they did it with the 49g/g+ series, although they changed the name.

I don't know which color should be chosen, though. I'M thinking of something dark, of course, but I fear that if it's too dark that people might have trouble distinguishing Shift/Alpha functions from regular ones.

[Thomas Radtke]

(12-23-2013 05:32 AM)Han Wrote:  The HP35S had a pretty good color scheme -- what do the folks who are color blind think of that scheme (I'm just curious).

The blue is slightly too dark. The best gold/cyan scheme can be found on the 20S.

[Giancarlo]

+1
I definitely can't see blue/orange labels. This is not only hp fault. My eyes aren't what they were when i bought my first 48.
Just took my 48gx out of the pouch and i can still see pretty well all the labels...

My two cents

Giancarlo

[Egan Ford]

(12-23-2013 12:22 AM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  marketing has won out.

And everybody else loses? I'd really like to hear their rational for the colors. Do they really thing someone will pick the Prime over the TI based on the color of the keys? The color nspire keyboard (their competition) is very readable.

Someone actually got paid to pick those colors.

[Michael de Estrada]

(12-25-2013 05:34 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  

(12-23-2013 12:22 AM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  marketing has won out.

Someone actually got paid to pick those colors.

Marketing people are the lowest form of human life. Consider the HP 15C LE. They came up with that stupid and useless faux lizard skin display case, which occupies twice the necessary real estate for storage, makes it difficult to remove or store the calculator and requires removal of the insert to access the manual and other accessories. Also, a brief video of the calculator with some braindead marketing type has her showing how cool it is that you can drop it and it won't break.

[Thomas Radtke]

(12-25-2013 06:40 PM)Michael de Estrada Wrote:  Marketing people are the lowest form of human life.

But they know their customers better than engineers :-). Keep it simple, let it look nice and don't overestimate the attention span of your customer. Package and manual will get thrown away within minutes. They just serve to comply with the law and to get that thing out of the store.

(12-25-2013 06:40 PM)Michael de Estrada Wrote:  Consider the HP 15C LE. They came up with that stupid and useless faux lizard skin display case, which occupies twice the necessary real estate for storage, makes it difficult to remove or store the calculator and requires removal of the insert to access the manual and other accessories.

C'mon, those marketing people have clearly communicated that it's a great gift, i.e. not for personal use. Give it to someone with enough space or to someone you dislike.

[htom trites]

(12-25-2013 05:34 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  

(12-23-2013 12:22 AM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  marketing has won out.

And everybody else loses? I'd really like to hear their rational for the colors. Do they really thing someone will pick the Prime over the TI based on the color of the keys? The color nspire keyboard (their competition) is very readable.

Someone actually got paid to pick those colors.

Yes, they do think that. After all, they would!

They probably had three independent focus groups that like them. What do beta testers know, anyway? They're not representative samples, they're self-selecting.

Now if color-blindness, complete or partial, was covered by the ADA, they'd notice, and people wouldn't have this problem.

Yet another case where 3D printing could be a solution -- print replacement faceplates, or faceplate covers, in different colors.

[Egan Ford]

(12-25-2013 07:41 PM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  

(12-25-2013 06:40 PM)Michael de Estrada Wrote:  Marketing people are the lowest form of human life.

But they know their customers better than engineers :-).

Apparently not, if they did, then they would be #1 in education.

[Thomas Radtke]

(12-25-2013 10:37 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  Apparently not, if they did, then they would be #1 in education.

TI and Casio have more of them ;-P.

Killing the Xpander, ignoring the market outside the USA and cutting budgets doesn't sound like decisions that marketing people can be blamed for.

[htom trites]

(12-25-2013 11:09 PM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  

(12-25-2013 10:37 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  Apparently not, if they did, then they would be #1 in education.

TI and Casio have more of them ;-P.

Killing the Xpander, ignoring the market outside the USA and cutting budgets doesn't sound like decisions that marketing people can be blamed for.

"We don't know how to sell it, so dump it." "There's no market in Europe for these machines." "Calculators are taking too much of our resources; we need better printer engines and an ink profit center."

[Egan Ford]

(12-25-2013 11:09 PM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  

(12-25-2013 10:37 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  Apparently not, if they did, then they would be #1 in education.

TI and Casio have more of them ;-P.

Killing the Xpander, ignoring the market outside the USA and cutting budgets doesn't sound like decisions that marketing people can be blamed for.

Actually, that is precisely the type of decisions that marketing makes. Except the cutting budgets part. That happens when marketing cannot find a market or fails in the marketplace.

[Thomas Radtke]

Egan, please tell me where you work and I'll apply immediately. Usually you get something on your desk and are being told to sell that effin'... erm, this major breakthrough in technology, through communication. Moving up one floor would be very nice.

[aurelio]

(12-23-2013 01:05 AM)jgreenb2 Wrote:  Totally right. The software bugs will be ironed out but the key contrast is here to stay. It's the biggest flaw on the Prime. Both the blue and especially the orange are nearly impossible for me to see against the gray numeric keys in anything but the brightest light.

+1 for me expecially the orange.................
We couldn think, in a different world, that the maker will retire all the sold calculators to be serviced.
Actually this happened in the past for software bugs, but at least somebody could provide stickers (WP34s docet), to apply on the keys

[Egan Ford]

(12-26-2013 08:52 AM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  Egan, please tell me where you work and I'll apply immediately. Usually you get something on your desk and are being told to sell that effin'... erm, this major breakthrough in technology, through communication. Moving up one floor would be very nice.

Google can tell you where I work. :-)

Marketing and selling are two different activities. There can be overlap, but there are also very distinct activities such as market analysis, requirements gathering, driving product requirements (e.g. windows only support, color keys :-), creation of new product, etc...

[Dominik Holenstein]

(12-23-2013 12:22 AM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  No, you are not alone. In fact the beta testers complained and actually picked a colour scheme that existed on a prototype that was much higher in contrast. Saw one and it was perfect.

Even though the beta testers voted unanimously for the higher contrast, marketing has won out.
(...)
Cheers, Geoff

That's pretty annoying!

The keyboard color scheme of the HP Prime is not HP-like.
I prefer the colors of the HP 50g black and blue (see attached picture) and the HP 48g.

All the best,
Dominik