I have to sit really close to the screen and usually have the colors inverted in order to see things properly. I'm writing this blog entry for those of you out there that may find yourself in a similar situation as myself.
If you've ever tried shopping for computer screens that will fit the bill for a low-vision user, you know that it can be frustrating! Pretty much EVERYTHING in the standard consumer market is no designed for us. Everybody wants to pack as many pixels into the smallest space possible. If you're visually impaired, you actually want the opposite!
You've heard of Apple's "Retina" display? This is where they have calculated the pixels per inch that it takes so your eye doesn't see the pixels at a comfortable distance. Well, that's all fine and dandy for those of you with perfect vision! What that means for us is that now application developers will be making their print smaller and smaller and thus harder to read. So if you're an app developer, PLEASE try not to fall into the small-print hole and pack EVERYTHING you possibly can into one screen. Use your imagination and design apps that everyone can read or scale and still look and function properly. Also, please run your app design by a color-blind person so you're not putting blue text on green backgrounds or red text on a black background, drives me crazy! Ok, enough of my rant about app design. Don't take this as a hit against Apple because I actually love their products - they offer much more in terms of visual aids than a lot of the other guys, built into IOS and Mac OS.
Back to display shopping, so ideally you want the biggest display with the lowest resolution. Today that probably means a 30" screen that supports a max of HD resolution. If you do the math, an HD display resolution is 1920 x 1080. For example, If you have a 27" screen, the approximate width is 23.54" which equates to about 81.5 pixels-per-inch. However if you have a lower-cost 20" screen, the approximate width is 17.43" which gives you a density of about 110 ppi. So, if you were to find a 30" screen that had a max res of 1920 x 1080, you would get a ppi of about 76. It's true that you can usually set your monitor res in your OS to something lower but most monitors now days don't do a good job of scaling the lower resolutions across the entire pixel bed and you usually have to choose only one or two resolutions that will scale without messing with the aspect ratio (things will look fat or skinny) or making your text look all blocky. It's best to find a screen that is large but supports only a lower resolution. It's hard to find these days, you may end up looking at using a TV that has a PC port on it!
Resolution isn't everything though, you need an OS to help you out. I already mentioned Mac OS. If you are a Mac owner and are a low-vision user, you probably already know the hotkeys for enabling zoom and color inversion. If not, take a look in your preferences, you should be able to find them. If you're lazy and don't want to go hunting for them, stop by an Apple store and have them show you. Mac OS has a great implementation of color inversion and zooming that just works and seems to have no issues with any app, including playing videos! However, if you're a Windows user, the story is different. The only Microsoft OS that has built-in zoom and color inversion is Windows 7 and up. I haven't tried Windows 8 yet but I assume the feature is there. If you're running Windows 7, you can load the magnifier by pressing Win and the Plus key together. Once loaded, you will see a small toolbar-like window appear. To turn on the color inversion, click the gear icon and check the box for color inversion. It's pretty simple and works great if your computer has enough power to support the Aero Windows themes (yes it's required to do full-screen zooming and color inversion). Also, if for whatever reason, some program loads (jab to WebEx) that knocks your graphics performance down a notch and it will not let you run magnifier in full-screen mode - it is then useless. So if you're a Windows user, make sure to get a computer with enough power to run Aero with any application you can throw at it.
To wrap up, if you're a low-vision computer user, I hope I've helped you out a bit with this article. If you have any questions for me, certainly contact me and I'd be happy to help out!
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