Night Vision: a very real UX problem

http://wherein.posterous.com/a-very-real-ux-problem

by niels_olson • 14 years ago

33 27 14 years ago

wherein.posterous.com

debacle• 14 years ago

This is very true. What we need is a readability-type program that will alter a stylesheet to red/green/grayscale at night.

The problem is that it wont always work - if someone uses a gaudy background image, it's still going to look like crap if you use a plugin to change the CSS.

zalew• 14 years ago

Maybe people for whom night vision is life and death matter shouldn't browse random pages on the internet while at work?

niels_olson4• 14 years ago

Hi, author of the post here. There are plenty of occasions where someone out on point in whatever field of endeavor needs some random nugget of information and a browser is a good way to get it.

nchuhoai• 14 years ago

I don't know but I don't think the iPad was ever designed for such "critical" use cases

Kallikrates• 14 years ago

Maybe not designed, but people really want it to: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&ta...

cube13• 14 years ago

I had to look it up,. This is what the contract was for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_flight_bag

It's basically meant to be a tablet-style display that contains all the manuals, maps, charts, checklists, and other information that a pilot would normally use while flying the plane. Interestingly enough, the night vision issue that TFA is talking about is one of the requirements for military versions of the device.

zacharyvoase• 14 years ago

How feasible is it to just implement this in hardware? That is, a sheet you can place on your iPad screen which attenuates bright whites and tints everything red. Might be the 80/20 solution in this case.

starpilot• 14 years ago

Some amateur astronomers have red-lens glasses for this purpose. Also allows them to run inside a lit house without spoiling their nightvision.

mmcnickle• 14 years ago

I've personally seen astronomers use red perspex covers for their laptops/phones as a way of preserving their night vision in the field.

I imagine that there could be some edge cases where contrast could be low etc. But it's a cheap solution.

niels_olson4• 14 years ago

Hi, I'm the author of the post. We use this hack on the bridge of Navy ships. The red density required is pretty significant (the plastic we used was a little thinner than a #2 pencil). We would velcro it over the screen. The velcro leaves a gap which creates a fairly significant light leak around the edges. First iteration, so better, but a long ways to go. Comparing that to Blacktree's nocturne, software is at least a significant part of the solution.

overshard• 14 years ago

I agree with most of this, I often times grab my phone at night to look something up and it would be nice if I didn't have a glaring white Google page in my browser destroying my vision. If it would just automatically revert to a night-vision mode after 10pm for me that would be great!

aw3c2• 14 years ago

I am really happy with "render effects" on Android in combination with screen filter. Setting it to a monochrome red and dim brightness like the author wants is a piece of cake.

dimitar• 14 years ago

Is there a way to run them without installing cryogenmod?

fredley• 14 years ago

It sounds like this is exactly what the author wants. Given this is the kind of thing that is much harder to implement on Android than iDevices (due to the large number of different screen technologies) it wouldn't be a difficult thing to add the the OS. That having been said, I don't expect to see it (on a non-jailbroken device) any time soon.

fmoralesc• 14 years ago

I guess that with modern composited desktops you could filter everything that gets outputted to the screen and change the colors (turn everything into monochrome and then apply a red filter on the whites). http://stereopsis.com/flux/ and http://jonls.dk/redshift/ do something like that.

zdw• 14 years ago

OS X can "enhance contrast" (posterize) or invert the entire display in the Universal Access system pref.

Most likely this could be achieved in a hacky manner via the monitor calibration settings in most operating systems.

Auguste• 14 years ago

Thanks a lot for pointing those out, especially f.lux. I'd never heard of them before, but they're fantastic.

peregrine• 14 years ago

This is a huge reason why I love http://stereopsis.com/flux/ they have a iPad app but only available for jail broken iPads.

When going from my laptop to ipad at night its a huge and painful difference, its largely the reason I am considering jail breaking.

niels_olson4• 14 years ago

I haven't tried flux on the ipad, but I didn't see anything in flux that even approaches what Nocturne will do.

ryanpetrich• 14 years ago

My "Color Profiles" package does this: http://rpetri.ch/cydia/colorprofiles/

georgieporgie2• 14 years ago

I use F.lux. I find certain things about it irritating[1] and I don't see any signs of updates or improvements from the author. Unfortunately, it appears to be patented, which rules out the possibility of competition spurring improvement.

[1] screen dimming is way too fast, happens in sync with the sun going down even though I want normal colors til 9pm, odd behavior when waking the computer, no ability to create custom brightness curves (e.g. in the afternoon, the sun bounces off the building behind me, greatly intensifying brightness for about two hours).

bdunbar• 14 years ago

screen dimming is way too fast,

F.lux has a preference for transition. Fast (20 seconds) or Slow (1 hour).

though I want normal colors til 9pm,

Change your location to a point two hours to your west?

radley• 14 years ago

We looked into this feature recently for our apps. Android has a Night Mode feature, however it is only accessible in Dock Mode & Car Mode.

From the article's comments, it appears that Cyanogen Mod can work-around this limitation.

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

  Activating a single set of color pigments (red OR green OR
  blue) is not enogh for yor brail to to really constrict 
  your iris or wash out your pigments (the gohst images you 
  see after seeing something bright).

Spellcheck.

niels_olson4• 14 years ago

yes, that's what I get for typing on an iPad in bed at midnight! Done, thanks!

za• 14 years ago

The Compiz 'color filter' can do this.

Night Vision: a very real UX problem

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