Yosemite font size is too small for vision impaired

Apple haven't changed a thing. I'm always told so submit suggestions to improve the OS to the Apple feedback link, but you don't get a tracking number or feedback as to what happens to your suggestion. To date, 0 of 80 of my suggestions have been implemented, so color me skeptical of the feedback system.

There is another one: BugReport.Apple.com. You don't have to be a developer to sign up. My most typical feedbacks are (a) works as designed, which misses my point in that the design was awful; (b) duplicate of others; (c) engineering contacts me. I have had a couple of things fixed, if you will, due to major upgrades, but generally mine are never really resolved either.

Apple used to be more visually impaired friendly than Windows. Not anymore. They seemed to ignore the myriad complaints about the illegible font and poor contrast (gray on gray is terrible) in ios 7 and made an even worse decision to replicate the errors in Yosemite! Reverse colors is a poor fix, as it reverses all colors. Why can't they just reverse the font and background like Windows does? Needless to say, if Apple doesn't change this, my next computer purchase will be a Windows version. They may not be as safe or reliable, but at least I can read the darn screen!

Clearly this is something you have really thought about.

I have found a tidbit of help on Yosemite which lets the under window show through

to choose a desktop picture that is very light and it makes my MacMail more readable,

I choose the stock photo of the white seashore. Not as much fun as having other

photos but did help, a little.

Why use transparency in the first place?

What benefits does it provide?

I see none.

Did anyone install Mac Os El Capitan to see if font size is bigger than in Yosemite and more useful for vision impaired? I know that the font is changed from Helvetica Neue to San Francisco: are the menus more legible? Thanks

Cant agree with you more was checking out Windows 10 and they have a way to change the global system font in accessibility instead of having to change the whole freakng resolution and waste all those pixels on that 27" display....

Come on apple not even on El Capitan

Dint know if anyone else has this problem also but my zoom in full screen gets stuck for a couple seconds and can't zoom out at times.

I've tried a bunch of things. Helvetica, with no size adjustment, is a real nightmare, even for my pretty good eyes and a retina screen.

One of the fixes I found did work: there's a way to return the system font to the excellent Lucida Grande, which some earlier systems had.

Do a search for this: lucidagrandeyosemite.

And go from there.

This is much better, for my eyes at least, than the new San Francisco font and better than other fixes that people have come up with.

Thanks to 'schreiberstein'. You've saved my eyes.

I'm age 97 and have had an Apple computer of one size or another for quite a few years. My previous one was a 27 inch "Lion." My eyesight is still pretty good with tri-focals for regular use and bi-focals prescribed for better computer viewing, and I have little trouble except for very small print like phone-book-size type especially when in light colors (a dumb idea when black would be much better) and I was led to believe by the advance hype that the new Apple Yosemite would be great for all kinds of viewing of on-screen text.

So as soon as the Yosemite came on market I bought (at a cost of about $2800) one of the early 27 inch Yosemite models and what a mistake that was. The text had a clearer resolution but they got that by making it so tiny that I need to hold a hand magnifying glass to the screen to read it. I had to go to the least resolution available on the scale menu in order to read it at all and I still have to do so when not online or when using the Apple Safari browser. I had trouble from the beginning and an Apple tech had to erase my whole factory-installed op system and download me a new one which didn't help.

After months of frustrating experimentation I finally stopped using the Safari browser altogether after downloading the Google Chrome browser which helped a great deal because the Google browser has a way to adjust the the overall type font to a readable size (some of the type is permanently in BOLD) but best of all Chrome has an extension which allows one to go through a range of color modifications, the best being the High Contrast option which makes the Apple contrast option look like a joke. On the Google browser it also makes all the texts look as if they were BOLD. I have recently upgraded the Yosemite system to the new El Capitan which also helps some, but by and large I would say the trouble I have had with Yosemite from the beginning is inexcusable for an Apple product. In my view Yosemite certainly wasn't ready for prime time and is only now useable for me with the Chrome browser rather than Safari which I find useless.

For those having the same problems I did, I suggest trying the Google Chrome browser which does have a few bugs of it's own such as making some color views too dark but in my case it made considerable improvement in my use of all the computer's features when online. Unfortunately, though, when using the computer offline I still have to wrestle with almost invisible texts which defies viewing on many of the built-in apps.

Why can't Apple just give us an option to make all the texts stand out in BOLD like Google has done with their High Contrast extension? Seems like a simple thing for them to do and would make all the difference for a lot of us.

I'm age 97 and have had an Apple computer of one size or another for quite a few years. My previous one was a 27 inch "Lion." My eyesight is still pretty good with tri-focals for regular use and bi-focals prescribed for better computer viewing, and I have little trouble except for very small print like phone-book-size type especially when in light colors (a dumb idea when black would be much better) and I was led to believe by the advance hype that the new Apple Yosemite would be great for all kinds of viewing of on-screen text.

So as soon as the Yosemite came on market I bought (at a cost of about $2800) one of the early 27 inch Yosemite models and what a mistake that was. The text had a clearer resolution but they got that by making it so tiny that I need to hold a hand magnifying glass to the screen to read it. I had to go to the least resolution available on the scale menu in order to read it at all and I still have to do so when not online or when using the Apple Safari browser. I had trouble from the beginning and an Apple phone tech had to erase my whole factory-installed op system and download me a new one which didn't help.

After months of frustrating experimentation I finally stopped using the Safari browser altogether and after downloading the Google Chrome browser found that it helped a great deal because the Google browser has a way to adjust the the overall type font to a readable size (some of their type is permanently in BOLD) but best of all Chrome has an extension which allows one to go through a range of color modifications, the best being the High Contrast option which makes the Apple contrast option look like no contrast at all. On the Google browser it also makes the texts look as if they were all set to BOLD.

I have recently upgraded the Yosemite system to the new El Capitan which may help some, but by and large I would say the trouble I have had with Yosemite from the beginning seems to me inexcusable for an Apple product. In my view Yosemite certainly wasn't ready for prime time when I bought it and is only now useable for me with the Chrome browser. I find Safari to be useless.

For those having the same problems I did, I suggest trying the Google Chrome browser which does have a few bugs of it's own such as making some color views too dark but in my case it made considerable improvement in my use of all the computer's features when online. Unfortunately, though, when using the computer offline I still have to wrestle with almost invisible texts which defy reasonable viewing on many of the built-in apps.

Why can't Apple just give us a download option to make all the texts stand out in BOLD like Google has done with their High Contrast extension? Seems like a simple thing for them to do and would make all the difference for those who have had problems similar to mine and from the number of complaints I see on these discussion groups it seems like a significant number.

For me the font type doesn't make a difference its the size. Changing the resolution is a terrible solution.

Let me just make it clear to Apple and for anyone looking to by a computer with low vision.

WINDOWS 10

Has adjustable font size for low vision.

Mac does not.

Very well put!

andrew54941 wrote:

For me the font type doesn't make a difference its the size. Changing the resolution is a terrible solution.

Let me just make it clear to Apple and for anyone looking to by a computer with low vision.

WINDOWS 10

Has adjustable font size for low vision.

Mac does not.

Very well put! Loyal Mac user in business and personal since 1984. I feel we have been abandoned by Apple. Very sad. Very disgusted. No excuse for this.

Unfortunately Mac OS X is not well designed to change FONT size easily and and have huge problems even when you try to "hack" it, Retina displays just show that limitation even more "visible" . I don't use Mac as my main computer anymore and while Windows is not perfect in making text bigger, it actually has lot less limitation in changing the size of the fonts in the screen, I have a MacBook 13 inches and now an HP X360 also 13 inches and I can work lot more easily and with less eye strain on the Windows, just because I could actually change in the Windows Settings the Size of all text, Menus, Titles, Text Boxes, etc, and everything is so much better, I tried to the same on Mac OS X but it's so much limited. Anyway a little idea, as we use Internet Browsers a lot this days:

1- Change the minimum font size to something more visible, your eyes and brain will thank you!

2- Use backgrounds that don't over shine the text/article/work you must look at.

3- Make the dock auto hide so you make the most of your screen size.

4- Check the doctor for computer glasses?

5- Prefer mate screens over those shiny glossy ones that just make it hard to work...

F.Lux software also helps a lot!

Hubris. The richist company in the world now. Once loved and loyal, now arrogant and imperious. This issue has been going on for at least 5 years now and not a bit of relief. I'm truly dismayed that such a fundamental interface issue from the company that made it all about the interface has allowed this to continue. It seems the attention is on the mobile iOS and it's much more profitable department than the traditional OS. I suppose 'consumers' are more important than producers when it comes to increasing profits. With the talent pool Apple commands I can't think of any good reason to neglect this.