Tons learning is not easy. Colors help. And we see pinyin in colors which is very cool. I've had another idea that probably might boost the perception even stronger: when the character is written correctly, it is shadowed in green. If possible, I would propose to have an option to change the shadow color, depending on the tone (just like pinyin). Maybe for the first few rounds till we've "learned" the tone, and then to switch the colors off.

Also, seen that on some displays (especially on those that are duller), orange and red look much more similar then on brighter displays (no, I am not a color-blind). Maybe having a bit stronger differentiation will look better.

Thanks for listening.

I have that suggestion on my list to try out from a while ago, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I'll have to play around with various schemes to still make it clear whether you've gotten it correct. It seems like it might be helpful.

The colors we're using are trying to conform to the standard colors which Nathan Dummitt introduced in his book, Chinese Through Tone and Color, so I'd hesitate to change them. Many displays can be calibrated to have better color and are often just miscalibrated; I don't know if that's an option for the ones you've access to.

Because I feel that the standard colours introduced by Dummitt are "wrong", I haven't used them, but I'd love it if we had other options (e.g., blue-green-brown-red, or John Pasden's orange-green-blue-red).

Well, thanks for keeping the colored shadows idea in mind (if I've got you right).

As about the orange-red colors - I understand your point much better now. Standards (or strong references) are very important to follow. I wouldn't calibrate my display for that, but the only small (but probably good) thing I can propose is to make the red and orange colors a bit more distinct then they are now. I know about color correction enough (though still less then your in-home designer :), so that maybe subtracting some red from orange and making it a bit brighter would be more then enough. Just like a culinary species - small amount might make a big difference :)

CheerZ