Accounting For Color Blindness In Site Design

Can You See the 74?



Do you know that 1 in 12 visitors to your site may have some form of color blindness? 


Color Blindness Or Weakness

Color blindess or weakness is something to consider when picking the right colors for your site.  The incidence of color blindess among your visitors may be much more common if you are targetting a niche dominated by males.  I won't bore you with the scientifics of color blindness, but here are a few things to consider when working on your site's design.

• Over 90% of color blind people have trouble seeing reds and greens.
• They can see black and white.
• Red-Green color weakness doesn't affect the ability to all shades of yellow and blue.
• They can see dimmer shades of yellow, such as gold.
• They can tell the difference between bright colors contrasted with dark colors.
• Reds and Greens of all shades give the most problems.
• Blue-Yellow blindness is very rare and tends to not be genetic (can result from alcoholism or head trauma).

Account For Color Blindness in Design

Remember these pointers when designing your site so you don't alienate a part of your audience.  This is more important in male dominated niches, but should be considered by all site designers.  Try not to use a lot of reds and greens in your layouts.  Try to use colors with a high light and dark contrast.

Image Credit:  http://www.colorvisiontesting.com/