katsmeow Absolutely. I do find that YNAB, as much as I love it, does suffer from seeming to be aimed only at young people - just look at the banner at the top of the front page of this very forum for an example - not one older person in that graphic. And this manifests itself in this modern predilection for lack of contrast on computer screens, designed for those with young eyes that prefer sleek looks to functionality and having no regard for those of us that find it harder to read things, for example, that are written in light grey on a blinding white background. These new colours follow this trend and whilst I can work with them I do find I have to look at them harder due to my older eyes. I really do feel for those that have real sight conditions that don't seem to be being considered here.

katsmeow For us colorblind persons, it was broken before. The icons helped though, but the icons are not in the mobile app. However, for me, I couldn't tell the difference between the old colors, and I cannot tell the difference of the new colors. They did not fix it for colorblind persons like me.

Herman If I take all my toolkit options off, I generally like the new colors better as well.  

Right now, as I have an "overspent" (not really, but I always reconcile before budgeting) category, and that category is the muted orange, but the available on the CC is the old, bold orange.  I think they should match, and maybe use a different bold orange.  This one seems out of place.

When the new colors are with the toolkit options, we have a problem of font and pill and color tone coordination.  

If this color change is indeed a precursor to larger changes, it was perhaps not good to push it out to us out of context.  Or, at least recognize that the Toolkit is quite popular with users and give them a heads up.

Move Light Sound Life I don't use the toolkit and the they seem to match to me.  Not sure what could be going on there. 

Herman Like I said, I disabled Toolkit so I could see what was going on with YNAB's changes.  The light orange and the bold orange don't seem to match functionally, and seem weird color wise.

Hi Move Light Sound Life !

Would you mind posting a screenshot of those two different oranges? We're taking the feedback into consideration here, but we want to make sure those colors are displaying as expected.

Move Light Sound Life Sorry I wasn't clear.  I was saying I don't see two different oranges so I'm not sure what is happening on your screen.  

Faness So, I thought I had turned off all the toolkit color options, but when I turn off the entire toolkit, the oranges look the same. Here is what I saw anyways.  Thanks for checking!  

Move Light Sound Life Thank you for posting that screenshot - I'm happy you found the culprit! Our development team is still going through feedback and it's helpful to know all the ways the color changes are taking affect. :)

Forest Green Stallion Please calm down. Support has been quite involved in this thread and has repeatedly stated that they are taking the feedback seriously and want to fix the problem. Their stated goal is to increase accessibility, and there is no reason to doubt that they aren't taking this seriously. I'm a colorblind individual who would like to see this fixed. Your petulant attitude isn't helping.

Violet Crab except YNAB  has a history of taking a really long time to fix things. The problems with Stealing From the Future were first reported in 2015. It's almost halfway through 2019 and they still haven't fixed it. That doesn't bode well for fixing this issue.

Violet Crab YNAB has a history of thumbing their noses at customers and adding "upgrades" that nobody wants while ignoring what has actually been asked for.

Nicole They're NOT easier to see. They're significantly more difficult to see.

No, sorry. As someone with mild red green colorblindness, this is a HUGE step in the wrong direction.

Spring Green Falcon Thank you for letting us know! Our development team researched approaches on making the website more accessible and these color changes were specifically to address red-green colorblindness, so this feedback is crucial. We'll make sure our development team sees this!

Nicole Accessible design is not meant to address one singular party at a time unfortunately, it's meant to be accessible for all. Not trying to bash here either, as I understand the purpose was to help not hurt. Really should have just started with simple typography here and then moved forward. 

I hope your design team can revert, take a deep breath, and start over again, because the contrast has actually become worse even for normal vision. It's become harder to scan and read the amounts. The reds no longer have any urgency to them, while the yellows bleed with the reds. All the numbers have different colors too, making it difficult to scan. It's these same muted colors that are used in the reports as well that are so similar and indistinguishable that the data visualization is nearly unusable. It may be what gave rise to the toolkit.

Best of luck to your design team on the accessibility journey; it's absolutely a tough one.

Nicole 
I don't know about normal vision users, but I have trouble differentiating between red and green. Not that I want to go away from colors, but keep them clear! I can tell the difference between stop light red and green, but the new colors are basically the same, for gods sake!

I have no idea who the new color scheme was tested on, but I can no longer see a category situation at a glance anymore. Clearly a case of fiddling with something that wasn't broken.

Nicole I have Deuteranopia color blindness, and NO this update did not fix it. It is exactly the same for me as before. I cannot tell the difference in the colors for the pills that are not red. Looks the same to me.

Nicole 

Hi Nicole,

Thank you for your update. 

 

When I read that YNAB is going to work to reduce my reliance on color I'm afraid of another future issue. 

 

Please do not assume that I and likely others rely on color. 

 

The color pills and other color elements add a favorable element to my budget and I do not rely on them or any other color as much as the numbers in my budget.

 

What I haven't seen pointed out yet is a core issue lurking behind the more surface level issue of the color shift and it is something I fear more.

 

If you assume what I and others want without asking or giving an option to opt in or not and act on what you think my experience/our is, you take away my power to decide and I experience being violated.

 

In my language this is known as an unhealthy rescue.

 

For example: You might imagine YNAB as a house you own and I rent a room from you.  If you enter my room and change the color of my light bulbs (rescue me ) from something I was enjoying to something else you think is better without getting my/our agreement, I will lose my power to decide and experience being violated.

 

I understand that you are making decisions on a macro level when you offer up a service like YNAB and that not everyone is going to like every change you make.

 

If I may, pleases leaving things the way they are and in the future.

 

Offering up an opt in choice is the way to solve the rescue issue whenever possible.

 

Thank you,

 

Lauren Michelle Alvarado

Lauren Michelle Alvarado Language like "reliance on color" means something specific in software development and accessibility. If a feature "relies on color" it means that things are distinguished solely on the basis of color and nothing else, like a green button and a red button that are otherwise identical.

There are ways to make items that are distinguished by color but also by other elements. For example a traffic signal has a red light and a green light, but a person who is unable to tell the difference between colors still knows the difference between the light on top and the light on the bottom.

So when YNAB says they are reducing reliance on color, they aren't making assumptions about how individual users use the software, they are just stating a goal of making sure that people who can't distinguish colors can still get full use out of the software.

(Now, you could definitely make a case that they are going about that goal in a wrong way, given the outpouring of negative feedback in this thread. But it remains their stated goal nonetheless.)

Gray Admiral 

Thank you.

 

It's a relief to read your share and better understand what "reliance on color" means in software language.

 

And, I agree with you that there are other ways to solve issues and make changes in light of what I pointed out as a deeper issue which I would not like to get lost for my misunderstanding.

Forest Green Stallion Absolutely! Think street light reds and greens, not washed out Gap spring collection...

Forest Green Stallion You are exactly correct. I also cannot tell the difference between the old colors and the new colors. I have the same color blindness as you.

Violet Crab Thank you for letting us know! These changes were made specifically to address Deuteranopia - red green colorblindness. Knowing this has missed the mark is crucial and we'll make sure our development team knows!

Faness Thank you - I appreciate your responsiveness. YNAB has been a huge asset for my family for 4 years now, and I do appreciate that the team was trying to improve things for those of us with colorblindness.

I don't know if any more detail will help to resolve the problem, but I would say that with the new color scheme, if both green and yellow categories are on the screen at the same time, I can, with slight difficulty, distinguish between the two. It takes a bit more than a glance, but they do look sufficiently different for me to tell them apart if they're side by side. If, however, there are only green categories visible, I find that I'm having to really look at each "pill" and second-guessing whether it is really green, or whether it is something else. 

In summary, I can distinguish the colors, but not at a glance, and really only through side-by-side comparison. In contrast, I found the former colors to be easily distinguishable at a glance. That said, there's wide variation in how red-green colorblindness manifests itself, so I don't know whether this is true for everyone.

Violet Crab The detail is extremely helpful! Thank you so much.

Slate Gray Inspector Sorry for the trouble here! Making the colors Harder to see is the exact opposite of what we were trying to do. This feedback is crucial and we're making sure our development team gets it. 

Superbone I assure you we did, but it seems to have missed the mark. Our development team has spent months researching how to increase accessibility, and these color changes were supposed to help with Deuteranopia - red green colorblindness. The fact this has made things harder to see is in direct contrast with what was planned and we're getting this feedback to them immediately.

Faness

I think you hit the mark perfectly.  Thanks, please don't change a thing! 

Herman Go away troll.

Forest Green Lightning  Now you've gone and hurt my feeling.

Forest Green Lightning This coming from the person berating support for acknowledging a change needs to be made? Troll indeed.

I think the new colors are pretty, btw. Does my budget Have to be "pretty"? Not really, but 🤷🏽‍♀️

Forest Green Stallion

I understand your frustration. Our development team is taking all gathered feedback into consideration before moving forward. 

Forest Green Lightning !

I understand these changes have been upsetting for some, but please try to keep comments on topic instead of personal. We want the forum to be a place where everyone can politely share their opinions, even if they're different. :)

Herman I love hearing you like the new colors! Our development team is taking all feedback into consideration, but our goal is to increase accessibility so we'll be making a few more changes going forward. 

Herman  You would be saying things differently if you could not see a difference between the colors. You are just trolling the people who have this color blindness.

FLMark80 I'm not at all.  I would prefer no  colors but the part that seems to be missed by many is that they were not trying to fix the colors.  They were trying to improve the readability of the numbers and I think they succeeded.  

Herman No. You are incorrect. They said they try to fix for colorblindness - more specifically the red/green colorblindness, which they failed.

FLMark80 Ignore Herman. He's all over the YNAB subreddit doing the same trolling of everyone who is pointing out the legitimate flaws in this update. YNAB, of course, still doesn't care at all about customer feedback.

Forest Green Lightning You are right. He does not suffer from this kind of colorblindness, so he does not understand. This whole post has several instances where their support has indicated that this was supposed to address this colorblindness, but this update doesn't. 

I rarely use the web portal version of the software, but I used it this morning as I did not have time when I was home before going to work. 

The icons are nice on the web portal, and they help distinguish between the different pills, but they are not on the mobile version and I cannot tell the difference between the colors.

I am glad they are working on this issue, but this update totally misses the mark

Forest Green Lightning That's interesting but i don't use reddit.

Slate Gray Inspector 
Today, you are my favorite straight white colorblind man.

Hot Pink Vacuum lol, same