And you didn’t know contrast could make such a difference!

Colorblind football fans cried "foul" when uniform designers didn't provide dark to light contrast for uniforms. How about being just as outraged about signs and maps you can't read?

Every time we brought a recognized expert from the field of vision and contrast into the ANSI meeting to testify on behalf of passing a measurable standard for contrast, we heard the same thing:  Contrast is arguably the most important factor in people with various levels of vision to be able to read signs. 

In other words, even if lighting is not optimal, if letters are smaller than desirable or you can't get as close to the sign as you wish, if the contrast is excellent, you have a better chance of reading the sign than if it was poor, and lighting, letter size or distance had been improved. 

With all that, designers still managed, always at the last minute after one or two favorable votes totals for our proposed standard, to defeat it, usually by very small margins. Once, the Chair even broke a tie.

The unfortunate result is, that though we finally did pass a measurable gloss standard, we are still "on our own" when it comes to the most important factor of all, contrast!