As the Director of Education AND Accessibility at Yale Repertory Theatre, one of the early version 11 launch sites, I am writing with a heavy heart, and strained vision. Although the improvements to version 11 are indeed exciting, I and my colleagues are dismayed at the decision to compromise the user's visual accessibiilty by significantly reducing the text font size, reducinreduced leading, and the choice of poor color contrasts. From an accessibiillty standpoint, Tessitura is going against every recommended universal (visual) protocol. Issues around eye strain as well as the potential for operator error will likely increase. As "the global leader for arts & cultural technology + services + community" I encourage Tessitura to really take a "look" at version 11 and do the right thing; by bringing your technology in line with basic guidelines around making effective legibility choices that will work for just about everyone.
Ms. Feldman: I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. We are currently upgrading our equipment and other processes to accommodate the upcoming Version 11 and we have found the small font size to be very problematic. I am very disappointed with the response that we have received from the Tessitura RAMP team regarding this issue. I applaud your suggestion that Tessitura should take another "look" at this and make some improvements so that the software remains legible throughout.
Dear Ruth,
Thank you for your post, we welcome your feedback about the visual changes introduced in Version 11.
First off, I wanted to let you (and everyone) know that we will be making some usability tweaks in the General Release of Version 11, due out in a few weeks. These include adding more space to the constituencies in the default header design and looking at the placement of some buttons to improve usability. This is based directly on user feedback we’ve received.
Overall, we actually spent a significant amount of time on visual accessibility as part of the development process of Version 11. We worked with a well-respected design firm that recommended color palate, fonts, font size and layout. At the direction of the Tessitura Network, this firm used accessibility as a primary driver. For instance, you will notice that we have dispensed with the multi-color palette seen in prior versions and replaced it with whites and blues – something that was recommended specifically for visual accessibility. In addition, we have enhanced the underlying code to be more responsive to the Microsoft Accessibility API, enabling better use of standard accessibility utilities including screen reading software and hardware.
Past the initial design and development, we did something rather unprecedented in our industry with Version 11. We provided, many months in advance, the ability for users to access a test version of the Version 11 software via a remote desktop sandbox. We did this to get early feedback into the look and feel of the application, while we still had time to make changes. We received a great deal of feedback and made many software modifications based on this. Overall, comments about the look and feel of the application were overwhelmingly positive.
As always, we will monitor the upgrade process for common themes – good and bad – being reported by the users, and make future product direction decisions based on that feedback.
I hope this helps better explain how we arrived at the new design. Thanks for the ongoing feedback.
Andrew