From: Royal Blue Royal on
Your color designers have made the Office programs much too difficult to use
for many men.

I have trained users in Office products for 15 years. Each new version of
the Office programs has been made more difficult than its predecessor to see
and distinguish colors for male users.

Health professionals have confirmed my own observations that thirty percent
of men are color-blind. I do not mean that they cannot distinguish
fire-engine red from royal blue. Color-blind means that they cannot
distinguish pastels--light blue, light grey, light green--from each other.
They also cannot distinguish dark shades--dark blue, dark grey, dark green
from each other. Bright primary colors are no problem. Men can see,
distinguish, and name bright colors, but not pastels or shades, or slight
variations in colors.

This would be no problem if colors and contrasts were used in the programs
solely for decorative purposes, but it is a huge problem when they are used
to convey information. These problems are rampant in important features
throughout all of the Office programs, but I will provide just two examples.

First, is the title bars of active versus inactive windows. Second, is the
Excel sheet tabs of the active versus inactive sheets. The active title bar
formerly was a bright blue contrasted with the grey of the inactive title
bar. In the latest versions, the active and inactive title bars are
indistinguishable. The Excel sheet tabs formerly were clearly white or
clearly grey, but now the active and inactive sheet tabs are
indistinguishable.

Women possess perfect color perception. This is one of the many wonderful
qualities of women.

For men, however, Microsoft is causing massive confusion for the thirty
percent of men who do not possess perfect color perception.

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=9c63c643-b904-46bc-a1f6-2cf7d96ca577&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc