Colorblindness/Accessibility Improvements

[Elusive92]

TL;DR

Improve object/state readability by making their shapes more unique, in addition to their colors.

What ?

A great example of colorblind-friendly design is road signage. They don't rely on color, but use it as enhancement. Think of how a stop sign can even be recognized when fully covered by snow.

Similarly, some mods have tried doing something similar to same-shaped objects in Factorio. Here is an example from "Colour Blind Friendly Science Packs" by Hornwitser:


Another example would be to use different bases for Stack- and Filter inserters (https://github.com/alangrainger/factori ... ind-fixes/):

OzpOzH0.jpg (25.64 KiB) Viewed 2515 times

Or, when those approaches are unavailable, choosing colors that are significantly less likely to collide with common color deficiency types (red/blue instead of red/green):

MkAIGqp-cropped.jpeg (35.24 KiB) Viewed 2515 times

I would also like to reference "Making Games Better for Gamers with Colourblindness & Low Vision | Designing for Disability" by Game Maker's Toolkit, which goes more in-depth about various approaches to dealing with vision deficiencies.

Here is, in no particular order, a non-exhaustive list of hard-to-distinguish cases, that arise with various types of color deficiency for different icons/indicators currently in the game:

• Color-only circuit network signals
• Red vs. green circuit network wires
• Red vs. green indicator lights on rail signals and other buildings like miners
• Copper ore vs. Stone
• Inserter types
• Fluid/barrel types
• Circuit types
• Module types
• Belt types
• Science pack types
• Logistics network chest types
• Roboport zones
• Nuclear vs. Rocket fuel
• Ammo/Rocket/Shell/Grenade types

The main takeaway is that there is no color combination that will work for everyone. The most reliable way to address these issues are unique textures/patterns and shapes.

References to a selection of prior art:
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... ut_losing/
https://github.com/alangrainger/factori ... lind-fixes
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/colorblind_adv_circuit
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/cb-science

Why ?

Something like 7-8% of the population are affected by some kind of color deficiency, and it would be a shame if Factorio had an increased barrier to entry and mastery for those players. In addition, losing achievements just to be able to play the game normally is somewhat disappointing.

The game already features a color filter option. However, due to the complexity of human color perception, it rarely solves the problem, only partially mitigates it by making other details harder to distinguish instead. I am personally of the opinion that these kinds of accessibility improvements make sense to add directly to the core game.

[AntiElitz]

I have a red green color weakness and can only second this. eg I have a lot of trouble to see greeninsh turret range on reddisch desert tiles. The color filters to not really help sufficiently with this. In this case a dotted range circle though would do the trick with ease.

[ctgPi]

Note also e.g. https://steamcommunity.com/id/hextree/r ... ed/427520/ is rated one of the most helpful negative reviews pre-Uncle Bob on Steam.

[_xer_]

I have normal color vision, but when I play at night I have night mode on. It filters out a portion of the blue/green light to be easier on the eyes and not keep you awake as much. Most items in the game are still perfectly recognisable for me, but there are some that are difficult to differentiate:

zzzzIMG.jpg (116.28 KiB) Viewed 2277 times

Left side is Lube/Tier 3 assembler/green science/efficiency modules,
right side is Water/Tier 1 assembler/blue science/speed modules.

Note that entities that are difficult to see normally, like ghosts or yellow inserters on copper patches, become almost invisible.

If the dev team is committed to providing an enjoyable game to visually impaired players, I would recommend doing a playthrough with the existing Saturation setting at 0 to see where potential improvements can be made.

[PunkSkeleton]

I do agree with the OP. I am not colorblind but I can definitely see how difficult the game would be for me if I were.
Yes, there are mods for this but not everybody can or wants to play with mods. Especially new player experience is definitely not about mods.

[ardoRic]

I got no skin in this topic, as I don't have any problem or filter that would warrant such a change.

But I wholeheartedly agree on making changes, where possible, to improve the experience of color blind / low vision people.

I don't think I have anything more to add at this point other than my support.

[TheKillerChicken]

I have a problem with seeing the rocks within a desert map. Having a Plasma Display does help that a little due to the phosphor-based colours, but I would like to see a colourblind mode, not just for my precious rocks, but for this game as a whole. I am concerned my vision may break more as I get older. I am all for this.

[Illiander42]

There's the "color filter" option in graphics settings that claims to do something for this.

Don't know when it was added or how well-known it is. (Or how useful it is)

Also, a note on inserters: Stack inserters already have a non-colour visual difference - they have split arms.

Other than that, adding more voices to this one (I use colourblind science packs most of the time, and don't have issues that would make me need it)

[Elusive92]

There's the "color filter" option in graphics settings that claims to do something for this.

Don't know when it was added or how well-known it is. (Or how useful it is)

Unfortunately not very useful as I touched on in the last paragraph of the original post. It's become quite popular for games to go with this approach, and I really appreciate the effort, but it's fundamentally not a solution to the underlying problem.

Also, a note on inserters: Stack inserters already have a non-colour visual difference - they have split arms.

That's true, it's already better than most other cases!

I appreciate your support for this proposal!

[Illiander42]

There's the "color filter" option in graphics settings that claims to do something for this.

Don't know when it was added or how well-known it is. (Or how useful it is)

Unfortunately not very useful as I touched on in the last paragraph of the original post. It's become quite popular for games to go with this approach, and I really appreciate the effort, but it's fundamentally not a solution to the underlying problem.

That's what I get for skimming posts, sorry

The filter is a band-aid fix that can be done with a shader pass at the end of the render chain, so it's a super-low-effort thing to do.

Definitely should be doing more.

[Illiander42]

Bumpity bump for 2.0

[Smokeythepolarbear]

TL;DR

Colorblind accessibility should not be a color filter. Things need to able to be distinguished by things other than color.

What?

Many many different items that have the same shape with the only difference being color. Nightmare for people with color blindness.

Let me list a few offenders:

Productivity Modules vs Efficiency Modules

Inserters (Normal vs Bulk)

Red/Green Wires (This one is so bad that I literally limit myself to only using green wires to avoid messing things up by accident.)

Why?

Now, I know there’s a colorblind filter in the game, but to me, it just barely changes anything, let alone fixes the problem. Just slapping a filter on the whole screen isn’t an ideal solution. I shouldn’t have to make the whole game look weird just to maybe, just maybe, be able to tell red from green.

In 2024, accessibility in games has come so far – just look at how Mario Kart handles red vs green shells. They don’t just change the colors; they change the orientation of the shells so you can tell at a glance.

Maybe inserters could have varying sizes or orientations, and productivity modules could be slightly flipped or altered to make them easier to distinguish. There are so many options.

Mod authors have already tried to address this issue, like using blue and orange wires instead of red and green. These two colors accommodate (I think) all types of colorblindness. Portal uses these exact colors for the same reason. But achievements play a big role for me in games, and having to choose between either struggling to identify items or disabling achievements by using a mod isn’t a choice I want to have to make.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with the same suggestion.

[DefGie]

I wonder if science packs could be emblazoned with a unique icon that speaks to the official name of the research category - Military science packs a gun or other weapon, space science packs don't take a ton of imagination. Automation science packs maybe an assembler, as long as it doesn't end up looking like there's an assembler on the belt. Production and Utility would probably be the hardest two to make sense.

If it wouldn't just be too small of a detail to effectively distinguish, this might overcome the mildly cartoonish effect that using different shapes can have. It also might encourage the community to use actual names instead of color as shorthand (I just looked up all the names except military and space because I don't know them), which I'm guessing could be helpful for participants who have trouble distinguishing some of the colors and don't internalize them as strong identifiers.

Of course "mildly cartoonish" is not the end of the world, but I think brainstorming for options that mesh better with the game's aesthetic is still a constructive exercise.

If inserters were real industrial equipment requiring intermittent human interaction, with a few specialized variants that critically require different human interaction, can we imagine what accessible markings would be applied to distinguish them? As with my suggestion for science packs it's possible this line of thinking is a dead-end if it just leads to small details that don't give the necessary at-a-glance recognition from 1000 feet in the air.