red for missing data and black for =no is confusing, at least to me

[matkoniecz]

I keep expecting that red is for no and black is for missing data.

Maybe some ugly garish pink for missing data would be better?

[legofahrrad]

Maybe some ugly garish pink for missing data would be better?

Pink would lead to confusion, at least in the dark theme. Railway tracks are already pink coloured.

[mnalis]

Ugly pink would work fine for me (Vespucci also uses that for missing data there and it's quite clear and understandable).

Dark theme does indeed use pink for railway, perhaps that could be changed instead? I never liked that bright pink for railway (and bright cyan for bigger roads) anyway - it's supposed to be dark theme so I can comfortably use it in low-light conditions, and not have eye-piercing spikes like that. Couldn't they just be tones of subdued dark greyish-violet like the rest of roads, or something?

[matkoniecz]

See also streetcomplete/streetcomplete-mapstyle#107 (Maybe railways in dark mode are too prominent)

I actually started doing this, but want to solve streetcomplete/streetcomplete-mapstyle#130 first (Consider officially archiving other branches?)

[westnordost]

Would it help if sidewalk=yes was blue, not green?

The reason for choosing red in all overlays as "is missing" is because red is the most disruptive color that is also associated with errors, prohibitions, destructive actions etc. E.g. you want your unit tests to be green, not red.
If "no sidewalk" was red, it could be perceived as something being wrong, something needing fixing.

A pink does not really have an association with errors and mistakes.

[boothym]

Would it help if sidewalk=yes was blue, not green?

You cannot have green and red as the only thing differentiating between values if you want to be accessible to colourblind users, so yes blue would be better.

[FloEdelmann]

This is how the current color palettes look like with different color deficiencies:

WayLitOverlay

StreetComplete/app/src/main/java/de/westnordost/streetcomplete/overlays/way_lit/WayLitOverlay.kt

Lines 44 to 51 in 4d063fa

	private val LitStatus?.color get() = when (this) {
	LitStatus.YES,
	LitStatus.UNSUPPORTED -> "#ccff00"
	LitStatus.NIGHT_AND_DAY -> "#33ff00"
	LitStatus.AUTOMATIC -> "#00aaff"
	LitStatus.NO -> "#555555"
	null -> Color.UNSPECIFIED
	}

See https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/#%23CCFF00-%2333FF00-%2300AAFF-%23555555-%23FF0000

SidewalkOverlay

StreetComplete/app/src/main/java/de/westnordost/streetcomplete/overlays/sidewalk/SidewalkOverlay.kt

Lines 64 to 69 in 4d063fa

	private val Sidewalk?.color get() = when (this) {
	Sidewalk.YES -> "#33cc00"
	Sidewalk.NO -> "#555555"
	Sidewalk.SEPARATE -> Color.INVISIBLE
	Sidewalk.INVALID, null -> Color.UNSPECIFIED
	}

See https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/#%2333CC00-%23555555-%23FF0000

[mnalis]

Note that there are several types of color blindness, you can check how they perceive the colors for example here or here.

General advice though is never use just color to indicate differences. (but also use different symbol, type of dashed line etc.)

[peternewman]

A pink does not really have an association with errors and mistakes.

Maybe not that, but I, and clearly others in this thread use it as a "highlighter" colour. E.g. I'll flag a cell in a spreadsheet like that where the value is a bit of an estimate or

"is missing"

entirely.

For both lit and sidewalk, they are nominally a tri-state (is or isn't lit, sidewalk present or not) and then data is missing. With possibly some further refining of some values (e.g. lit/night and day/automatic are all essentially "true", likewise "yes" and "separate" are broadly the same for sidewalk). Which I'd have thought, and indeed seem to be, somewhat related.

[westnordost]

Thank you for the link, @FloEdelmann

[matkoniecz]

@westnordost

Would it help if sidewalk=yes was blue, not green?

Maybe? Hard to guess how I would react initially, without being aware what is being shown. But it would break green-red dynamic at least.

[westnordost]

For future reference, the colors are now:

WayLitOverlay

SidewalkOverlay