Labels: Better color naming for the use of blind people

[Menelion]

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At GitHub, when creating or editing a label, we can assign a color. This feature is extremely useful.
However, currently the buttons for default colors are labeled with hex codes, like: Color #b60205.
It would be nice however, if at least default colors would have more meaningful names, like, for example, Dark Red, Teal, Sky Blue, Saddle Brown and so on. Thus even a blind person whose brain drivers don't support the colors category, could assign meaningful colors to labels, like red to bugs, yellow to enhancement requests, and so on, and so forth.

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[cehfisher]

Hello @Menelion - thank you for taking the time to share your feedback on the current color naming! We have filed this with the GitHub Accessibility team so that it can be reviewed and we will follow-up here with any additional questions or updates. Thanks again!

[mattobee]

Hey @Menelion, I'm one of the accessibility designers at GitHub.

Adding names to the default colors when creating or editing a label is a great idea, thank you. As you say, that would allow a blind user to select a meaningful color. Would you expect to have both the color name and the hex, or just the name?

Separately, that does also make me wonder about how those labels then appear on issues and elsewhere. The text value of the label is assumed to provide the meaning and the color is just a secondary visual indicator. The color of the label is therefore not currently exposed to screen readers. But it's true to say that some teams do use color as a way of grouping related labels, so there is arguably a benefit in exposing it. I suspect it would be too verbose for most users but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

[Menelion]

Thanks @mattobee for coming back to me. Yes, you're absolutely right, having color names inside the label would be too verbose. We have a way to check current colors (not perfectly working, but still), or theoretically you can put it into the title attribute which is discouraged for meaningful information, but this additional hint would fit in it, I think. Anyway, name and hex will be a great addition because now… well, I'm lost 😊

[mattobee]

Quick update, @Menelion. I have passed this to the team responsible for the labels functionality who will be able to make the necessary changes.

[mattobee]

Hi @Menelion. Next time you create or edit a label, you'll find that the default colors now have meaningful names in addition to the hex values. Thanks again for the suggestion, it's a nice improvement.

[Menelion]

Coool, thank you so much @mattobee! GitHub is the most accessible environment for us blind devs, and it's great!