More Than Just a Color: Visual Cues for Color Blind Users
#35: A comprehensive guide to making UI more accessible for color blind users
Hey there! This is a 🔒 Subscriber-only episode of Fundament. Our members get access to exclusive articles like this one, a complete archive, the Fundament Library, and discounts for other educational resources.
According to a non-profit organization, Colour Blind Awareness, up to 8% of men and 0.5% of women worldwide have color blindness. This means that nearly 350 million people experience problems using computer screens.
Imagine browsing tasks in a project management app but being unable to tell which tasks are priority because they're only marked with different colors or trying to read order statuses in an online store that are indicated solely by changing colors. This is the daily reality for many people with color blindness.
What is color blindness?
Color blindness is a vision disorder that affects the ability to distinguish certain colors. It involves difficulties perceiving differences between colors or, in rare cases, the complete inability to see specific colors.
The most common disorders involve problems with seeing the full range of green, red, or blue colors, and here we distinguish three types:
Protanopia, which is difficulty perceiving red.
Deuteranopia, which is difficulty perceiving green (occurs most frequently)
Tritanopia, which is difficulty seeing blue (occurs very rarely)
However, among individuals with color vision deficiencies, there is also a fourth and rarest type:
Achromatopsia, which is total color blindness, where all colors are seen in shades of gray.
It's worth noting that people with color vision disorders don't just have problems with the mentioned primary colors but also with all colors that are created from their combination. For example, a person having trouble with the color red will also have difficulty distinguishing violet (red + blue) or orange (red + yellow).
How do people with color blindness see the world?
To better understand the challenges faced by people with color blindness, it’s important to know how they perceive different colors and, in turn, how our project will look through their eyes. For a few selected basic colors, it looks like this:
To better understand how the colors we’ve chosen are perceived by people with color blindness (and not only them), I highly recommend checking out the tool Who can use. It's a great tool that helps simulate how people with different vision disorders will perceive our chosen colors.
When color may not be enough
Now, let's get back to user interface design and take a closer look at situations where relying solely on visual cues based on color can significantly reduce usability or even make an interface unusable.
Of course, it’s impossible to list all the potential areas where understanding might be hindered due to the use of color alone. However, I hope this list will effectively guide you on what to pay attention to in the future and highlight the areas that could be challenging for individuals with color blindness.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Fundament – Product Design Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.