Yosemite font size is too small for vision impaired

Another example is Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced -- the print is so small and these type 'boxes' cannot be enlarged with zoom features.

I love the option+command and then - or + keys for enlarging font size anywhere, but it doesn't work on these 'instruction boxes'. With Yosemite

it seems to enlarge the ? boxes which are basically a manual. When these zooming features don't work I have astonished feeling described here too:

'what was Apple thinking!!!' not to include ease in adjusting the size of font. This is certainly an 'upgrade' that is needed by so many, and as people

age, many, many more.

We run a video and graphic production firm. We just yesterday had to upgrade to Yosemite 10.10.3 in order to upgrade to the new FCPX 10.2. WOW! I then discovered this thread. You're right. We can hardly work on anything anymore without zooming the screen to read anything in virtually all apps including FCPX.

I did file a Feedback. Hopefully this gets fixed ASAP. Our eyesight wasn't all that bad until we upgraded yesterday. Now all of our eyes are sore trying to read things and get over the lack of contrast, shadows, 3D, etc. Yes, we've turned on/off all options for "fixing" the visibility thing, but still pretty sad. Just like in iOS 7 as many have said. I thought I was going blind when that came out! Now the same issue with OSX. Horrible! And we're pretty much font experts around here. Very poor choices by people who obviously don't make their living on a computer all day.

Note: I do see they added in Safari "View/Zoom Text Only" which helps one issue as discussed previously, but still not a practical approach to the overall problem.

yep, so basically they broke what Steve Jobs made to make a decent operating system.

There is a discussion raging on this over at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=21092781#post21092781. I have used apple for the last 20 years and I decided not to upgrade to Yosemite on the basis of this. I have never experienced such a storm of protest. So I still use my macbook pro retina with snow leopard, quite happy with it.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2026699/stop-squinting-make-text-bigger-in-os-x. html

Stop squinting: Make text bigger in OS X

This article helped me a lot. And in Apple Mail, put into Help: customizing toolbar and the pointer

show where this feature is ... then

can add the A A icon to the toolbar, to increase the size of the message reception area when reading emails.

This is a lovely new feature of the Yosemite 10.10.3 Find that including names as well as icons (a choice in customizing

the toolbar) is also helpful to vision ease. Making the icons in the dock larger, "magnification" of them (in System

Preferences: "Dock") is also an aid. The A A (in the toolbar of Safari) is also available with Yosemite. Have found

that the option+command (together held down) and then the plus or minus (+ or -) key pressed actually increases

the information boxes that come up and are needed for making specific choices, for example in the System Preference

dock choice described here, or when one clicks the ? (question mark) in the corner of such choice pages/inserts to receive on

scene the online manual describing the choices given in more detail. The link given here is so helpful wanted

to share it with anyone challenged visually with using an apple. 😍

http://www.macworld.com/article/2026699/stop-squinting-make-text-bigger-in-os-x. html

Stop squinting: Make text bigger in OS X

This article helped me a lot. And in Apple Mail, put into Help: customizing toolbar and the pointer

show where this feature is ... then

can add the A A icon to the toolbar, to increase the size of the message reception area when reading emails.

This is a lovely new feature of the Yosemite 10.10.3 Find that including names as well as icons (a choice in customizing

the toolbar) is also helpful to vision ease. Making the icons in the dock larger, "magnification" of them (in System

Preferences: "Dock") is also an aid. The A A (in the toolbar of Safari) is also available with Yosemite. Have found

that the option+command (together held down) and then the plus or minus (+ or -) key pressed actually increases

the information boxes that come up and are needed for making specific choices, for example in the System Preference

dock choice described here, or when one clicks the ? (question mark) in the corner of such choice pages/inserts to receive on

scene the online manual describing the choices given in more detail. The link given here is so helpful wanted

to share it with anyone challenged visually with using an apple. 😍

That article was written in the year 2013 and was great advice was those few who had vision problems with pre-Yosemite installed Macs, but how exactly does its advice overcome the problems caused by installing Yosemite on existing machines?

Nate

http://www.macworld.com/article/2026699/stop-squinting-make-text-bigger-in-os-x. html

Since I am almost completely new at computers, this article's indicating with pictures where things might be found for decision

making around font size and was accurate in relation to the MacBook Air 10.10.3 that I am using. Don't know the source of, in this

initial venture into the MacAir, I came across these things which worked well to improve visability

(and I mention in my previous response), but at the very least the linked article encouraged me to go ahead and follow the recipe

presented for maximizing visibility, and then with that energy of everything improving positively with the link's suggestion

did the following too, and I can see the font generally bigger everywhere from these actions on the Yosemite as compared

to the Maverick in 2014,

Without the link's info which applied (as far as I know to the 10.10.3 perfectly well) and these other adjustments a new person

to computers might not be aware of I saw improvement in the 10.10.3's default presentations and the adjustments I could

make to these, in advisories and info panels about the computer (which in the previous MacBook 10.9.4 cause severe eyestrain

to someone just learning and reading a lot of them) with the zoom function which as far I had experienced didn't work on

the Maverick. So that is specifically an improvement on Yosemite for my level of visual abilities, but might be for someone

with bigger challenges.

As I shared earlier:

And in Apple Mail, put into Help search box: "customizing toolbar" and a pointer indicates where this feature i

s found onthe app ... then clicking put the A A (symbol) and the words under it to the 'customized' Mail toolbar.

This is a really helpful option with Yosemite ( with Maverick I needed to open each mail as if forwarding it in

order to increase the size of the font to readable ! -so you can imagine my relief) now in this Yosemite's Mail

the AA feature in the customized toolbar let's me view each mail without opening it. (Maybe I'm making too

much of what might be ordinary discoveries and maybe they were available on the Maverick and in my ignorance I

didn't know it. Anyway, for any other novices this is what I am sharing (I hope it helps you too): to increase the size of the message reception area when reading emails.

This is a lovely new feature of the Yosemite 10.10.3 Find that including names as well as icons (a choice in customizing

the toolbar) is also helpful to vision ease. Making the icons in the dock larger, "magnification" of them (in System

Preferences: "Dock") is also an aid. The A A (in the toolbar of Safari) is also available with Yosemite. Have found

that the option+command (together held down) and then the plus or minus (+ or -) key pressed actually increases

the information boxes that come up and are needed for making specific choices, for example in the System Preference

dock choice described here, or when one clicks the ? (question mark) in the corner of such choice pages/inserts to receive on

scene the online manual describing the choices given in more detail. The link given here is so helpful wanted

to share it with anyone challenged visually with using a MacBook Air too.

Yes, I am happy with macbook pro retina with Mavericks too. I tested iMac retina and had to use Yosemite, did not know could not install 1-year old Mavericks. I wonder how you installed SL, apple blocks earlier version installation as far as I have investigated so far. You may send me an email if possible. Most likely I am going to sell iMac because of this issue.

I installed Yosemite to check/test whether there is an issue with Yosemite font rendering. And indeed it is worse experience compared to Mavericks on the same hardware/laptop, I would say previous interface/font rendering is better for visual discrimination, reading, and eye. Thus, it is not only an issue of retina/nonretina, it is the interface/font rendering. As I indicated before, it is not also about font size. Apple uses "thin" font, and less contrast (grayer) fonts, check the attached file, the difference will be drastic if you make it smaller and smaller, thicker fonts are easier to read, which "17" easier to read? Easier on eye? Human perception? Thus, when the fonts get smaller like when reading a pdf or website, things get difficult. However, people may not see this issue, for larger text. Lucida grande is better for eye since each letter is wider, easier to discriminate, and read. This is similar to Arial is better (on XP) than Calibri (on win7), so Microsoft made a mistake in 2009, and Apple followed it after a long time in 2015, just for the sake of "looking good".

(I am working on a MacBook Air not a Pro, if that makes any difference.)

Does the Yosemite Font App perhaps give one choices in pdf or websites? I am so new at these things don’t really know how that app might be used for websites or pdf file reading choices, if at all for these purposes.

Am I being too idealistic to think that sending Apple Feedback on this issue directly might evolve into changes and updates, to take your valid concerns into consideration — especially with changing the grayer and thinner font choices. It seems to be a ‘style’ thing too, as I notice people using thinner grayer font choices in their emails and wonder why this ‘trend’ might be the case at the same time that the viewing screens on devices are getting smaller and smaller?!

You are right about the thicker fonts being easier to read in your example of “17” as far as I can see. I just use zooming features on websites, and different sites seem to use different fonts. Using Mac Mail, my eyes like the Comic Sans MS font (20) for readability, and I’ve chosen it in the Mail Preferences for sending/receiving emails (and this message.) I find it clearer than Arial and Lucinda, but these things are personal.

To activate a font, install it using Font Book, Apple’s font management software included with OSX. Launch Font Book from your Applications folder, and drag the font files from the OpenType folder you downloaded into the middle pane labelled “Font.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT6bANQN1m4

Just found this in another discussion on this topic and answered my own question about the Font app.

Also as mentioned in other discussion on this topic: going to System Preferences - Displays and Making the Resolution to Scaled at 1280 x 800 is an improvement that is noticeable for me, and the Brightness choices (rather than the automatic setting) has also been helpful. With all of the suggestions made in the many discussions on this topic, it becomes clear that the severity of the visual challenge is key in whether or not a particular remedy is effective for any specific person. Maximum choices in accessibility should be available on all models, clearly.

Adding to this: I think I am understanding the main issue in Retina based computers etc. I don't see blurriness but overall we are having thin font and type, GUI/aqua interface, contrast/color preference mistakes that Apple has made. To make my point:, just look at the defaulted font type in Mac power point preview, it is "Calibri-Light", rather than Calibri (see attachment). There is overall "light" font type is being used in Yosemite, meaning thinner and grayer. This has created a serious issue for reading fonts. People needed to increase font size, this is only a partial solution. For the first time over 5 years of expose to Mac, I have spent quite a lot of time adjusting "color scheme" under System Preferences/ Display, to make things darker, increase contrast. This reminded me when I was doing on very bad Thinkpad LCDs to see better on windows/calibri fonts. We never had to do this until Yosemite, since Mac was using fatter and darker (not full bold) fonts. This was also helping non-retina laptops for better seeing. When they made it lighter, people think now font is blurry. People should not have to un-tick LCD font smoothing to make things sharper.

If Apple or somebody else can allow how to set the global setting for font to be Normal, or Dark (black-fat font, not full-bold), rather than "Light", then readability will improve. Another issue is contrast between front objects (like font) vs background. In the accessibility, there is option to increase contrast and reduce transparency but this does not help in my opinion. We want to increase the contrast of the font for easier read for our eye not global contrast, we don't want to increase the contrast of the background. Previous user interface was perfectly designed because they chose very light colors (mostly light-blue) as better on eye, rather than gray and dark gray, which makes harder to discriminate even buttons or front windows from the background window in the desktop environment. Thus rather than people focus on flatness in Yosemite or 3D dock in Mavericks (or previous versions), people should focus on these when they are giving feedback to Apple. If you look at the finder in Mavericks, radio buttons has gradient-like gray, which allow easier to discriminate. In Yosemite, they see a problem and instead they made the buttons white, which is a problem in contrast. Thus, some people use "increase contrast" option but again this would be harder on eye. Even the stripes on the finder is better colored in Mavericks (or previous versions) to discriminate files, you will see that this is harder on eye in Yosemite.

Apple should put an option (like in iPhone) to make fonts thicker/darker. Everybody complained in iPhone and they made this happen. But we see that in desktop environment we don't see much updates, as if Apple is not listening or focusing mainly on iOS. This might be a company strategy and it is useless to argue, but Microsoft and IBM/Lenovo has learned to listen to the customers and they keep improving. If Apple continues this way, it will loose the professionals, skeleton of the Mac OS X.

Although this might improve, previously people did not have to reduce the resolution, in fact highest resolution says "best for the display", reducing can increase the size and darkness artificially by creating some level of blurriness. I also am using lower resolution when using yosemite, but in previous version (Mavericks) I don't have to reduce the resolution. Again this is related to font size, font thickness and level of darkness