UK's National Rail backs down from greyscale website tribute to Prince Phil after visually impaired users complain
- Reference: 1618226106
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/04/12/national_rail_prince_philip_fail/
- Source link:
Far from citizens taking to the streets and screaming at the sky, fists balled in anguish, most folk are pretty chill about the passing of the nation's slightly inappropriate grandad, who missed hitting a century by about two months.
[2]
This collective "mourning" was nowhere more keenly felt than on nationalrail.co.uk, whose overlords deemed it necessary to render the train booking website in greyscale as a tribute to Phil.
There's your sort-of-IT angle.
[3]
But far from the maudlin design choice inspiring bittersweet memories of that time when Prince Phil told a 13-year-old kid he was [4]"too fat to be an astronaut" , it instead invoked the ire of visually impaired users.
Indeed, some of the Reg readers who got in touch insisted that "a black and white colour scheme for everything" was an absolutely dreadful idea, especially "if you can't see clearly ([and] especially when things like bold text and links can become indistinguishable)."
"As a mark of respect for the passing of an elderly gentleman, they've stopped any other folk with failing eyesight from using the site."
National Rail went hard on the damage control this morning, [5]deleting [6]some [7]tweets and pinning this message to the top of its feed:
The National Rail website has been temporarily greyscaled as a mark of respect following the death of HRH Duke of Edinburgh. We are listening to feedback about how people are using the website and are making further changes today to make it more accessible to all our customers. — National Rail (@nationalrailenq) [8]April 12, 2021
And what, pray, might that feedback include? "Looking to book a train ticket and... struggling with it in greyscale," said one visitor. "@nationalrailenq why's it gone black and white? Thanks."
To which the service's Twitter wrangler responded: "Hello, we've put our website into black and white as mark of respect for Prince Phillip [sic] who passed away last week. Do you need any help with your booking?"
"Oh okay, is there a way to change it back please? Finding it very hard to use..."
"I don't think there is I'm afraid. We're keeping the grey-scale until the end of the week I think... Sorry for the inconvenience of all this."
Others were less forgiving.
Sorry, but this is objectively insane. — James Cherry (@lechuzzles) [9]April 12, 2021
How about showing a mark of respect for your living, visually-impaired customers? Just a thought. — Amy T 💙 (@JolinarSG1) [10]April 12, 2021
Just going to be really direct, you are actively making your website more difficult for disabled people to use, and that's not a worthwhile trade off to make. — Laura Kate Dale (@LaurakBuzz) [11]April 12, 2021
Oh dear. But the fix was pretty simple – ad/tracker blockers.
Yes, while researching this story (read: laughing at the Twitter bloodbath), it took us a minute to figure out what everyone was going on about because nationalrail.co.uk looked its usual full-colour mess to us. It was only when we switched off our "shields" on the Brave browser (the built-in service that blocks ads, trackers, and "other creepy things" – except on The Register and a few other responsible sites who deserve our custom) that we found the startling monochrome.
Other browser extensions like uBlock Origin had the same result. So while National Rail's social media intern thought you might have to struggle through for the rest of the week, really you could undo the damage with a click.
Anyway, within the hour the website had returned to its original (and ghastly) blue/yellow incarnation. As usual, moaning on Twitter gets stuff done.
Unfortunately, the [12]Mayor of London's website has not been smart enough to do the same.
[13]
The Register asked National Rail and the Mayor of London's office to comment. National Rail more or less copy-pasted its tweet from above, while City Hall said: "The design of our website has been temporarily altered as a mark of respect during this period of national mourning. Accessibility is a priority for us and the use of greyscale has been thoroughly tested to ensure clear contrast across all our website's elements." ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/prince_philip_obituary/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YHRunRxKpoIENBXFB3nefgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YHRunRxKpoIENBXFB3nefgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://metro.co.uk/2021/04/09/the-best-of-prince-philips-gaffes-and-comments-as-duke-dies-aged-99-7743496/
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/04/12/deleted_tweets.jpg
[6] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/04/12/deleted_tweets2.jpg
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/04/12/deleted_tweets3.jpg
[8] https://twitter.com/nationalrailenq/status/1381523327391576065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[9] https://twitter.com/lechuzzles/status/1381500684898611201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[10] https://twitter.com/JolinarSG1/status/1381508912575303680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[11] https://twitter.com/LaurakBuzz/status/1381512267775279108?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[12] https://www.london.gov.uk/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YHRunRxKpoIENBXFB3nefgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Optically challenged
I realise that I have not been on a train for over a year.
A bit over two years ago I qualified for a Senior Railcard, 30 quid a year or 70 quid for 3 years and gets you a third off most tickets. Bargain thinks I. HoHum...
Was it the result of the Twitter storm or did somebody use ceomail.com to find how to escalate it?
Money
May have stopped when one Accessibility specialist pointer out it is an easy £1300.
Idiots. Yes he died. No greyscaling stuff is NOT an appropriate tribute.
The London Mayor's site is actually painful to look at and I don't have any colour blindness. That's an awful design and a poor tribute to Prince Philip.
Almost like being a kid watching black and white TV again. Maybe they should reduce it to 405 pixel vertical height as well.
Funny how people react to these websites. If it was an artist website it would be considered "cool". Now that it is a civil service website everybody and their dog complains.
Besides can't people read anymore? It doesn't matter if a button has colour, just READ what's on the damn thing! In fact the majority on this website is also B/W except for the red banner at the top and the photo's. Double standards anyone?
'If it was an artist website it would be considered "cool".'
Only by the sector of the populace that thinks (?) in that shallow manner. I've never in many decades been offered any consistent definition of "cool" other than the opposite of hot (as in physics) or some woolly notion of "I like it". When words cease to be clearly definable, communication ceases to function.
But as to the greyscale web site - it seems to typify an established trend towards "trying to be original", that usually fails because [a] it's not spontaneous and [b] the practitioners are usually not sufficiently informed to recognise how commonplace their "originality" commonly turns out to be.
It's been forgotten that art and visual design are means of communication. One sees this most explicitly in "corporate design". A society I know of used to have a logo that was based on their initials, so it was not terribly inspired but immediately recognisable. They "rebranded" and their logo is now just a pink squiggle that gets lost among all the other pink squiggles that were produced by trendy "designers" that year.
A bit of pedantry.
In my personal English lexicon, warm is the opposite of cool and hot is the opposite of cold.
I shall now go in search of my coat. There is a copy of Hobson Jobson in the pocket.
My guess is that it's mostly leftists complaining because it's a tribute to HRH.
Depends upon your target market. If your market includes people that struggle with poor contrast, then grey text is a really stupid idea.
Indeed. I have a 'go to sleep' feature on the phone that turns the screen greyscale if I'm up too late doomscrolling. It really makes some things hard to read, and you realise how much colour is being used as a visual guide, and how hard a lot of stuff online must be if your eyesight is poor.
I mean, hyperlinks used to be highlighted visually with an underline, until every site overrode that in the CSS to use colour instead (in some cases even worse than that). Some hypertext browsers even made the link an obvious button (back when buttons were obviously buttons and not a slightly different flat coloured rectange). Maybe browsers should have a 'Force hyperlink underline' option for visually impaired users and people who are tired of hunting links on some sites.
Sites doing what nationalrail did is simply not on. Put a banner on the page, or something similar, if you absolutely feel you need to add to the avalanche of 'tributes', although I don't see why such a website needs to have this.
Shame...
"...who missed hitting a century by about two months."
He also missed out on getting a telegram from his wife.
Re: Shame...
"He also missed out on getting a telegram from his wife."
I'd be interested in what the telegram plans are if she is still going strong on 21/04/2026.
Re: Shame...
There speaks someone who has never sent them self a bunch of Valentines Day card in an attempt to appear more popular. Oh? The one with the pocket full of stamps, please...
Re: missed out on getting a telegram from his wife.
Me too. She insists on sticking to WhatsApp, no matter what I try to advise.
OK so....
The company finds itself in the unusual position of asking its customers to install ad and tracking blockers in order to get around its design and, by dint of that advice, will thus negate its own statistics collection in the process. Irony, thy name is National Rail.
Re: OK so....
Most things that aren't irony aren't hard enough to use as rails....
The [1]Transport for Wales news website also went grey at the weekend, but is back in the usual red, white and black now. No idea if that was a planned change, or if they were following the National Rail furore!
[2]At work , my projection of cheery images and videos on the front of the building has stopped and the floodlights were turned dark blue on Saturday evening. I turned them red-white-blue on Sunday, but have been advised that a plain dark blue is more appropriate until the weekend :-)
M.
[1] https://news.tfw.wales/
[2] http://www.passinglight.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/around-the-bay/SAI66.JPG
Have they..
Introduced a rail replacement horse and buggy service?
Re: Have they..
That would indeed be a
in the HTML
(carriage return - sorry)
Mayor of London's website
Eyes must be going, thought I read wastesite instead of website!
Re: Mayor of London's website
It's the difference between call by value and call by name.
Mark of respect?
How on earth is changing your website into a facsimile of some goth metal message board an appropriate tribute? I imagine he would been pretty scathing about the idea that someone booking a ticket from Swindon to Didcot Parkway would be outraged that the ticket booking process didn't look like a Cradle of Filth fanpage. The guy apparently wanted it all to be "low key", so forcing all this compulsory mourning seems to be the disrespectful thing to do.
And those who considered it an appropriate gesture would probably have been apoplectic when the train turned up and hadn't been painted completely black.
Re: Mark of respect?
Perhaps all those people screwing up their eyes to attempt to decipher the text were meant to bring back memories of the DoE's "forthright" way with words.
Perhaps
we could abolish the monarchy as a sign of respect and give his wife a rest.
Re: Perhaps
How about we abolish you instead.
What is all the fuzz about?
I don't understand what all the fuzz is about. These sites work just as good (or bad) in greyscale as in colour. This is clearly a typical 1st world problem bordering on decadence.
Re: What is all the fuzz about?
Oooh look, another Anonymous Troll who admits publicly that they have absolutely no empathy and can not understand what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes. Go poke out one of your eyes and use an electrical sander on the cornea of the other one and then see how that website thing works for you.
Why?
I understand why it didn't occur to them that greyscale might be hard for some users to read. Could happen to any of us I think. But why did they not, once informed, simply add a conspicuous header that says "OUR WEBSITE IS TEMPORARILY RENDERED IN GREY IN TRIBUTE TO OUR DEPARTED PRINCE PHILIP. IF YOU NEED THE COLOR VERSION, CLICK HERE" ?
Of course, it would help if clicking actually switched to the color version.
Ad/tracker blockers. Use them (though not on The Reg)
Sorry, I refuse to disable ad/tracker blockers for anyone.
Here's an idea, maybe use static ads that are IT related that don't require tracking?
Speaking of ads
Since you brought up the topic...
Why doesn't El Reg have ads that don't stalk your readers? Does such a thing exist? Presumably if you were a printed organ you'd manage to source ads that aren't dependent on tracking to work.
Re: Speaking of ads
I quite like them.
I never see any ads at home (thanks PiHole and Brave) at work I get the Redhat ads with some guy with a bog-brush beard. Now I have an extra reason to avoid Redhat.
Pathetic
You make a f**k up and refuse to correct maintaining a boneheader and stupid notion that somehow you are right? No wonder bosses in the UK are looked at as a bunch of greedy but hamfisted morons.
Now, if you wanted to do something put a black banner on, or something, dont f**k the entire website and then refuse to correct your glaring and stupid mistake.
And when are Google """"maps"""" going to follow suit and realise that white against a light grey background is insane.
UK's National Rail backs down from greyscale
this is nothing, do you know what the National Grid are planning when the Big E follows?! There's this big red switch (or a lever), and and it's manned (or womanned) 24/7 in expectation of the Big Moment. You ain't seen nothing yet...
QVC
They even closed down the QVC channel, “out of respect”
What is it with the world, where every outfit under the sun feels they need to join in on the gushing, its just a tad cringeworthy
Optically challenged
Many organisations have been woefully inept in catering for even people with relatively common red-green colour 'blindness'. When I was advising the Probation Service* (many years ago), they all had paper-based files. As areas had merged or changed management teams some had two or three different formats for folders. However, purely by chance, every area I advised had the colour red in some way on the folders for 'Scheduler 1' offenders. These are people convicted of an offence against a child from literally taking candy from a baby to full on physical abuse and murder. (Yup, they get let out on probation when the parole board says so, rehabilitation of offenders and all that.)
This has a few issues. When a probation office is broken into (which is sadly all too frequent), the files with red bits on the folders tend to stand out a bit, so someone of an inquisitive nature might just read one of them. When in court and the probation officer gives evidence or reads from a folder, anyone who knows red implies Schedule 1 will know. Plus there is the possibility of a red-green colourblind probation officer. I do think I managed to persuade them to phase out the red markings. Of course it is mostly on IT now, so I have no idea what is going on.
I realise that I have not been on a train for over a year.
*Quite the nicest clients I ever had, lovely people, no money, but lovely people.