Color blindness testing

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
feyd
Neighborhood Spidermoddy
Posts: 31559
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:24 pm
Location: Bothell, Washington, USA

Color blindness testing

Post by feyd »

I was reading though my week old RSS feed data (collected whilst of "vacation") and came across a post on the Unofficial Apple Blog about Color Oracle which allows the simulation of various forms of color blindness for visual testing. Not only is it available on the Mac, but Windows and Linux too. Free to boot.

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/12/color-oracle/ for the article and additional links.
User avatar
Benjamin
Site Administrator
Posts: 6935
Joined: Sun May 19, 2002 10:24 pm

Post by Benjamin »

That's neat. Another method to test for this is to take a screen shot and change it to gray scale. This ensures your contrast ratios are high enough as well.
User avatar
s.dot
Tranquility In Moderation
Posts: 5001
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2005 7:18 pm
Location: Indiana

Post by s.dot »

In windows (Vista at least), there's an option in the 'Ease of Access' menu to up the contrast for color blind people. Just thought I'd throw that in.
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
User avatar
CoderGoblin
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1425
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2004 10:03 am
Location: Aachen, Germany

Post by CoderGoblin »

This Accessibility Color Wheel has been mentioned on these forums before.

It is my opinion that user accessibility is not something the majority of us really take into consideration during design, despite the fact that it a legal requirement in many countries.
collette
Forum Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:23 pm

Post by collette »

I always test by printing the web-page on a black and white laser printer. If it is still good readably it's ok. And another benifed of printing it, is that you see how the page comes out of the printer (or is it printable).
bikozak
Forum Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:55 pm

Re: Color blindness testing

Post by bikozak »

It is good for anyone to take such a
http://offsetpressman.blogspot.com/2009 ... nters.html
color blindness test. It doesn't mean you just see black and white. If you are a male, your chances of having a green or red disability are 1 in 20. Go ahead, take a test.
User avatar
Robert Sinclair
Forum Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 10:58 pm

Re: Color blindness testing

Post by Robert Sinclair »

bikozak wrote:It is good for anyone to take such a
http://offsetpressman.blogspot.com/2009 ... nters.html
color blindness test. It doesn't mean you just see black and white. If you are a male, your chances of having a green or red disability are 1 in 20. Go ahead, take a test.
This is something I I didn't consider at all in all my designs so far. So thinking back at what I've done over the years, I think I caused much problems to those who don't see as well as we do. :( This sucks!
Post Reply