[155942] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Color vision for network techs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Astle)
Fri Aug 31 10:40:56 2012
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:39:35 -0600
From: William Astle <lost@l-w.ca>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <E1T7S0g-0006hY-7d@mailman.nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On 12-08-31 08:15 AM, Berry Mobley wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Do any of you do any color vision screening in your interview process?
> How do those of you with color vision impairments compensate? I'd never
> considered this until I was in one of our facilities with my son (who
> has limited color vision) and we had a discussion about the LEDs. He
> could only determine on/off - not amber/red/green on the equipment we
> had. I'm wondering if we need a color vision requirement (or test) as
> part of our hiring requirements.
I'm red/green deficient. It's not total - I can identify high saturation
reds and greens that cover a large enough area. However, it is enough
that when I look at a multi-colour status indicator, I'm left scratching
my head. Many times, I've said to myself, "There ought to be a law
against using only the colour of light to indicate status." Of course,
you know what they say about "there ought to be a law...."
Screening for colour vision is dubious, no matter how much it would help
with grokking the status lights. Even without the discrimination angle,
consider that a very nontrivial proportion of men are colour deficient
(on the order of 5% if my information is correct). You would be reducing
your possible talent pool.
Instead of a colour vision requirement or policy, I would start
screaming at equipment manufacturers for using only the colour of an
indicator to show information. A tristate can easily be shown with
steady, slow blink, and fast blink if there really is some compelling
reason not to have multiple indicators. If everyone, especially large
organizations, put pressure on equipment manufacturers, the problem
could be largely eliminated.
