Apologies all if posted in the wrong place... Being rather color blind, I simply can't see the difference between users' status easily, based on the crappy default color indication: is there a way I could change these colors or the appearance in general, so as to have a clearly visible and identifiable clue whether a user is available, busy etc. The colors from version pre-2013 were better... Using a 2013 client now. Ideally, instead of ugly-colored squares, things like maybe a(clearly) red octagon indicating people are busy ... So a combination of shape with colors which are distinguishable by most colorblind people

Thanks!

Hi

With the Native Lync client you cannot achieve it. 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj937254.aspx

Please post your question here

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/lync/en-US/home?forum=communicatorsdk

This is not built into Lync client but a more color blind freindly UI could be built (considerable work) using the Lync SDK.

Also I don't see anything about here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/lync-help/lync-accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities-HA103010544.aspx

There is HIGH contrast, but this unfortunately doesn't affect presence:
http://lyncdup.com/2011/03/lync-high-contractaccessibility-support/

Hi Peter A BE,

For Lync client 2013 you cannot change to the shape and other color.

You may need to custom your own Lync client, you can post the question on MSDN Lync SDK forum. Thank you for your understanding.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/home?category=lync

Best Regards,

Eason

As far as I can tell from below-linked article, yes you can do it. You cannot do it via client customization (or maybe you can) but you can do it for everyone, via server customization:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398997.aspx

I would also like a color blind feature for the Lync client. In 2013, the green and yellow colors are just too similar, especially on bad monitors.

Eason Huang, I read your reply earlier "Thank you for your understanding".  It annoyed me.  You mistake the colour blind community.  We do not understand why this perfectly reasonable request is not actioned.  Shapes are well known.  The colour blind useable palate likewise.  We do not want your thanks.  We do not want your ill-informed and incorrect presumption of understanding.  We simply want you to design a system that is usable to the a very large minority of your users.  Hells teeth man, I cannot tell the difference between these colour choices and you should be ashamed that you are not aware of this.  Or at the very least not prepared to do something about it