color blindness
Approximately one in twelve people may not be able to use
your web site properly due to some form of color blindness. At best, your site
won't look to a color blind person as you designed it, at worst, this could mean
that text is unreadable, navigation unusable and elements are invisible.
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Most color blind people can't distinguish between shades of red and green
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Shades of these colors appear lighter to color blind people
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The most common forms of color blindness are:
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Protanopia
unable to receive red, and
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Deuteranopia
unable to receive green
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A much more rare form is found in:
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Tritanopia
- unable to receive blue
how can these problems be counteracted?
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Don't
use color as the only visual clue
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Always underline links
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Provide other means to distinguish between sections
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Avoid
using only red and green in your design
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Maintain a high contrast between text and background
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Always
put "alt" text on graphics
design tips
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When designing your site, switch to black and white (desaturate in
PhotoShop) to see if it still works after removing color
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Ask color blind colleagues or friends
for their opinion
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Save versions of your design using the PhotoShop color blind palettes
below to see the design as a color blind person would
color palettes
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These are the Adobe Photoshop versions of the Protanopia and Deuteranopia
palettes:
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Right click
to save as
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Save in \Presets\Color Swatches\Adobe Photoshop Only\ in your Adobe
Photoshop program folder
instructions
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In Photoshop, create your image and then:
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Image
> Mode > Indexed color
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Palette
> Custom
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Load
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Find
the appropriate palette
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e.g. of protan palette |
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e.g. of deutan palette |
other resources
Color Blind Design Hints and Tips --
http://www.cimmerii.demon.co.uk/colourblind/design.html
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