Posted by Veron ·
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X Wings (6)
goes by the name veron (english) or wanting (chinese). a definitive leo born august 1, 1984. a solo traveler. loves cats, coffee, sensual music, yummy food and technology. when she's not at her job as an IS developer for the government, she's likely to be out dining, or visiting an interesting art gallery or event.
did you know that color blindness affects approximately 8 percent of all men in america? that means 1 out of every 12 american men is colorblind! on the other hand, only 0.4 percent of women in america are colorblind, which is significantly less.
i am not sure if the same statistics apply for singapore. for a population in which more than 70 percent of all adults are myopic, we already have our fair share of vision problems. i personally do not know anyone who’s colorblind.
since a third of all visitors to sparklette.net are americans, i figured some of them may actually be colorblind. as a designer, i am curious as to how this website looks to a colorblind person. so i downloaded this photoshop filter to find out.
to a person who’s not colorblind, this is what sparklette.net looks like:
(okay, i get that the screenshot isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s here for easy comparison.)
there are different kinds and levels of color blindness. this is how the site looks to a protanope (i swear, i am not calling anyone names!):
a person with protanopia can’t differentiate between red and green hues. another form of red-green color blindness is deuteranopia:
those two look rather similar since they are both forms of red-green color blindness. i can’t really tell any difference except that in deuteranopia, the red hues seem closer to the actual colors.
for blue-yellow color blindness, or tritanopia, this is how this website appears:
then, there is the most extreme form of color blindness known as achromatopsia. that’s total colorblindness. the person sees only grey tones:
how terrible to not see the world in color!
external links
Colorblind web page filter
Vischeck: Colorblind Photoshop filter
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Actually, your site still looks kind of cool with the first, but for those who have trouble seeing the colour blue, they miss out on quite a lot of the stuff that makes colours great.
I guess this has got to do with how blue is a relatively major composition in colours or something, but I haven’t read up on this, so I don’t really know much. It really is a pity to be unable to see the brilliant display for what they are! View all comments by pkchukiss
Think many guys in Singapore are suffering from red-green color blindness. ( I am one of them ) That explains why I cant really tell the difference between the 1st two images. At least I am still blessed with the ability to see the world in color. View all comments by ZK
How interesting that you pointed this out. Yes, its really the saddest thing to not be able to see or be colour blind when the world is so full of vivid colours. I did a colour blind test way back and apparently I can’t tell from red and green when they are mixed together. Luckily I can still see them individually and am not affected by it. Otherwise, I’ll not call shopping my hobby! View all comments by Joyz
wow! interesting …i know all the names now. And the differences! View all comments by sweska
Interesting. I’m going to try that for myself too, always wonder how the world looks like when some colours are excluded. I guess the fortunate thing for those who are colourblind is that they still can see. I hope they felt that way too. View all comments by Huimei
The worst thing that can happend to one is being totally blind and living in a world of darkness. :o( View all comments by [::eM::]
Actually, your blog looks nice in total grey tone. :D View all comments by DK
pkchukiss: Yeah! Seeing this site from the eyes of a colorblind person is a new experience. It also made me realise that my design is more blue than any other color.
ZK: It does affect more men than women. I have a question about how someone with red-green color blindness would view the world. Do things look bluish and yellowish?
Joyz: Did you have to do those tests with the dots and hidden numbers? It takes me a little while to spot those numbers too.
sweska: We learn something new everyday!
Huimei: I don’t know if they would feel they are missing out on anything since they haven’t actually seen the “real” colors before.
[::eM::]: Perhaps not the worst, but it is pretty close!
DK: Good to have options! View all comments by Veron
Interesting entry, I’m going to try it out myself too.
Like DK said, it’s nices in grey tone as well. In fact, it’s nice in all the following tones that you have screenshot. But of cause the one with full color is the best of all ;x View all comments by Princess
Yes, its those numbers made up of dotted colours which always get my mind swirling! The usual first two/three will be the simplest and then it gets harder as it goes down the pages. I always end up doing “tikkam” at the back! View all comments by Joyz
I guess I face the same problems as Joyz, totally hopeless when red and green are mixed together, but no problem when they are not. Things dont look particularly bluish or yellowish, but I remember I had to be certified that I am color blind when taking my chemistry practical exam => View all comments by ZK
I think during my days in Uni, (long long ago), we were told that certain colours are not to be used for screen designs.
Some people would not be able to see anything! haha…
There are also certain colour combinations that’s a no no. They did simulations that users become violent and might go mad if they have to work on those screens. LOL…
p/s did u get your laptop in the end at the IT show? haha.. It’s been a long time since you wanted to get one right? View all comments by Keropok Man
I pity the man who has achromatopsia and reads this post hehe. He won’t know the diff View all comments by mervkwok
Princess: You should try it! With a pink blog like yours I bet it would look very different to a person with red-green color blindness.
Joyz: Other than for certain jobs, when do people have to take color blindness tests? Personally I don’t recall ever having had to take one before.
ZK: Ooh! Now I remember! My classmates and I used to say how unfair it was that colorblind people had the colors told to them during chemical reactions!
Keropok Man: You learned screen designs in university? That’s pretty cool! The violent reactions to certain color combinations reminds me of the Pokemon seizures back in 1997, but it’s probably not the same thing. And no, I didn’t get anything from the IT Show. Apple didn’t have any fantastic deal that I was hoping for.
mervkwok: You are right. It would just look like 5 exactly identical images on a similar-looking website. View all comments by Veron
You have to take such a test for certain courses in Tertiary education. I remembered I wanted to do Quality Assurance (QA) in Poly and as I failed this test, I was rejected for the course! I still remembered begging the doc to pass me. Of course, he said “no”! He cited that there were so many wires that I had to deal with in QA and most of them were red and green…so imagine if I couldn’t differentiate them and ended up causing an explosion! Haha…thinking back, it was quite funny! I ended up in Logistics anyway! View all comments by Joyz
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