New! Updated customizable color palette for better accessibility

Hi all,

As part of our plan to improve the overall accessibility of Asana, we’re introducing an update to our customizable color palette and the size of colored elements, like Custom Fields.

The updated colors will make labels more visible and readable so that visually impaired users can successfully navigate Asana.

We’re rolling out this update gradually, and the update to the customizable color palette is currently available to 50% of users.

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to comment below.

19 Likes

The new teal is really strong. We mark our “active” projects in this colour and I’ll definitely be swapping off it, just too bright.

7 Likes

Hi Zaraida, just wondering whether we can have the option of reverting to the old palette? The new one really isn’t working for us. The harsher colours and black text in some of the tags have projects and task lists looking rather messy and we’re finding them harder to read. We’d be really keen to have the option of opting-out of the new palette. Cheers :slightly_smiling_face:

38 Likes

I don’t think accessibility was the main focus here as the text in those colored elements is now much harder to read. You should know that visually impaired have issues with text on a neon bright background. Please make a revert option available.

17 Likes

As I understand it, the issue was that the Asana web app did not meet the web standards for contrast between text and a colored background, and the new palette meets those defined requirements.

9 Likes

I really appreciate the efforts regarding accessibility. However, the new color scheme with alternating text colors is really adding a lot of noise.

It would be helpful to see the foreground color in the color picker. This way I could specifically pick only colors with a light foreground for a field.

16 Likes

The new colours makes it harder to read, and they are not good on the eyes. Could you at least add more soft colours (not neon) for the tags, and the option to choose text colour in black or white to make it easier to read?

14 Likes

Hello,
Is there a way to turn these changes off or make them optional? As others have been saying, these seem to universally be changes for the worse. I personally am somewhat colorblind but have never had issues with the Asana colors previously before this update; however, the new colors are significantly harder to read and several of them are particularly painful with my color blindness. Not sure what the intent was here but it doesn’t seem to have been achieved and doesn’t seem worth it for such a significant sudden UI change.

16 Likes

Hi there! Just wanted to echo those before me, I too would like to revert to the old palette. Or at least have all the font in the same color instead of half black & half white. Thanks :slight_smile:

5 Likes

Maybe two things will be great:

  • ability to change color of the label and the color of the text separately (like Gmail tags) - this way everyone can mix and match as they like, plus you will square the number of final outcomes
  • maybe there can be two pallets as the normal colors are usually not easy to read for the people with visibility difficulties, but the same is true sometimes vice versa
    I think it is a great direction, hat down for paying attention to such important topics. But please think about expanding the product for inclusion rather that changing it, as people are different and always one option will be hard to fit all needs.
11 Likes

We would definitely want to revert to the old colors. All our tasks were defined around the colors of the tags as much as the text. The differences are enough to be a problem.

10 Likes

We would like the old color palette as well. This is way too jarring for our team. Hoping there is a way to revert.

16 Likes

“This is way too jarring for our team”. Right on the mark @Sarah_Daily!

Please give us some options here. The intent is noble, but the implementation is harsh and makes things harder to read and process.

10 Likes

I would like to voice my opinion on these color pallet changes and that they have immediately negatively impacted my teams work flow. We would like the option to revert to the older color pallet immediately as this has had an immediate negative impact to my groups productivity and how we use the color pallet to visually identify and prioritize our work flow. For myself and my team this change is unwelcome and has done for us the exact opposite of what the Asana’s teams goal was with the change, “Make labels more visible and readable” These changes have reduced the effective ‘visibility’ for how we use the color palette and how it correlates to our use of it in Asana.

10 Likes

Hello,
It seems like the text on the tags is in bold now. We personally use the tags to help categorize, but with the colour change + the bold text, it is drawing all the attention; the due date (especially overdue tasks) seems unnoticeable.
In addition to adjusting the colours, would it be possible to “unbold” the text?

5 Likes

Please could you give the option to switch between The new and the old palettes, or else introduce a color picker so we can customize our own text and highlight colors? Some of these colors are too similar to one another, and the varying font colors look so messy…

10 Likes

I agree with many of the posts above. Fully supportive of the intent. I happen to fall into the group of those that are slightly colorblind. While I didn’t have issues before, there are a couple options that are hard to read or difficult to differentiate. If there won’t be an option to change the text color, I believe this change is better suited as a default preference, at best.

3 Likes

Getting here, the development of Asana is getting weird, instead of focusing on important features it destroys what is already good

5 Likes

I know everyone else has said it, but

  1. Nice intent, poor execution

  2. New style is harder to read, not easier (mismatched font styles, weird colours, it’s very noisy)

  3. It interferes with our prioritising and workflow

Would fully support for this to be an optional feature, so people can switch it on if they prefer, but it’s not good as-is.

9 Likes

I’ll add my vote and sentiment as well. While I appreciate the intent, the actual result is “jarring”, “blinding”, “difficult to read”, “aggravating”. Can we please have the option of using the old palette?

The title of this post is “Updated CUSTOMIZABLE color palette…”. Maybe I’m just missing something? Is there a way to actually CUSTOMIZE the palette? Maybe I can adjust the palette for our Organization and solve this issue myself?

If so, any insight to HOW this is CUSTOMIZABLE, would be really appreciated.

It’s kind of like if Asana had changed it so that ALL TEXT IS ALL CAPS IN THE INTEREST OF ACCESSIBILITY. That too would not be a great result. :wink:

5 Likes