Level Color Change Proposal

Hi Everyone!

A user has suggested that the level colors might make more sense if they moved along a gradient that intuitively indicated difficulty. Opening up for discussion!

The current colors were mostly chosen based on how distinct they were from the levels above and below, rather than a gradient.

This isn’t a pressing issue obviously, but happy to change! If not a large majority want to change, then I’ll probably keep the way it is.

Current Color Scheme:

Proposed Color Scheme:

Poll: Do you want to change the color scheme?

  • No. I like the colors as they currently are.
  • Yes, let’s change to the proposed color scheme.
  • Yes, let’s change but to something other than the proposed scheme .
0 voters
1 Like

I think the proposed colour scheme looks good! Might just be me being nitpicky, but the three first colours have a nice gradient to them, while the three last colours are very distinct. Not sure how I’d ‘solve’ that, though.

4 Likes

Psst, make voters public when there’s not a particular reason to keep it private!

1 Like

I was thinking about that after I posted. Perhaps we put red after black? Or maybe replace red with something else.

Feel free to suggest alternatives in the comments :slightly_smiling_face:

I kind of like black being the hardest difficulty. Feels like the natural choice for it, in my opinion.

Edit: Thinking on the slopes in the ski resorts in my home country, they use green → blue → red → black. That’s consistent with this, but they’re fewer colours and more distinct from each other.

Edit 2: I voted for the change to the proposed colour scheme option, but really I don’t mind changing to another colour scheme, either.

5 Likes

I think the current colors are fine, but if you’re trying to make the colors more along a gradient I would put them into 2-3 distinct groups, where there’s a gradient within each group, but the color scheme between each group is very distinct. The newly proposed N5, N4, and N3 would fit into this style as a group in the blue/green scheme, but N2, N1, and N1+ don’t fit together with the purple/red/black proposal.

The groups would either be:

  • N5/N4, N3/N2, N1/N1+
    OR
  • N5/N4/N3, N2/N1/N1+
2 Likes

Shoot, I didn’t know that was an option. As it’s not critical, I think I’ll leave as is (cannot change poll after 5 mins).

Will do in future.

For seem reason they hid it behind the advanced menu. I understand why it’s not the default selection (better safe than sorry kind of thing), but it’s annoying that it’s so hidden.

I kind of like that N4, N3, N2 are kind of similar. It’s not beginner level, but it’s a level that many people can reach and be comfortable with.

Then you hit N1 and the color tells you danger!!! for god’s sake, turn back!!! don’t even think about it! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

That’s not a good thing! :joy:

Make it like WaniKani, where you have to travel through pain, death, and hell, but then eventually you reach paradise. :upside_down_face:

2 Likes

Actually, this is a good point. And to correct myself from earlier, the first four colours work well gradient-wise, not just the first three.

It is kind of funny, though.

I feel like you might want to check if there’s any issue with color blind people, especially red-green color blinds :sweat_smile:

There are color schemes that are (supposedly) fine for the largest number of people. (Could be a toggle if people don’t like it)

8 Likes

Honestly, red is borderline gradient with purple too. Could just add a yellow or something before green and then shift everything down one, removing the black color.

Shouldn’t be a problem since the difficulty numbers are always included along with the colors, but it is kind of funny that green and red are opposites in terms of difficulty with the new proposal.

I’d recommend against a toggle since the colors become a kind of branding over time. You want people to be on the same page as much as possible. And perhaps brandon will want to add forum badges at some point that make use of the levels/colors in some way.

3 Likes

It makes more sense thematically this way, though. You see them used this way all over the place, even traffic lights.

Yeah, but then shouldn’t it be like:

  • purple
  • blue
  • green
  • yellow
  • orange
  • red

You know, the rainbow? :joy:

4 Likes

Strong agree here, this is an easy accessibility win. I personally like the Wong color palette here but the Tol palette could also work.

5 Likes

You read my mind @seanblue :sweat_smile:. I do want avatars sometime soon (need a user preference) and I do like the colors becoming ‘entrenched’. I forget who but someone mentioned the ‘purples’ as a reference to the books from 20-26, so already being used that way.

I’d love to do that wrt colorblindness, but doesn’t making a colorblind accessible palette invalidate the notion of a gradient like the proposal?

At least, the palettes they show on that page don’t feel like gradients. If that’s wrong, would love if someone showed something specific via creating something on that site :slight_smile:

Like @seanblue says, there are numbers here… however I do also use that color scheme for statistics as well and maybe other things. I think it’s all labelled so far.

Honestly the proposed scheme doesn’t fit my concept of a gradient either. To me a gradient is the same color family slowly getting darker/lighter, or shifting through the rainbow. There are too few colors for the latter to be really “gradient” and it just becomes “rainbow” to me, which the palettes worked for.

A light/dark gradient should be color blind friendly though!

3 Likes

There are gradients that are colorblind friendly, like viridis!

I know there are tools that generate gradients from 2 or 3 colors. I guess it would still be colorblind friendly?

8 Likes

OT: I also wanted to mention colorblindness and accessibility but I see so many already did. I like this community. :yellow_heart: :green_heart: :purple_heart:

4 Likes