What it's like to be color blind

[kretzy]

I always argue with my brother about the colour of things. The funny thing is, he's colour blind so his arguments never seem to hold up.

 

[Doctor Q]

Here is another type of color blindness test: 10 slides where you identify which colored dot looks most like the one in the center. It points out each mistake as you go, so for me it says "You have just made a Protanomalous type of matching error" after most of them, confirming what I already know.

If the link doesn't work, try this one.

Note: Neither link works any more.

 

[rendezvouscp]

I just took that test, and I scored 10/10; I have to say, though, that there was one near the beginning of the test that showed green in the middle and two shades of greens as the two possible "right" answers. That one threw me for a little loop.

Doctor Q, which ones did you get wrong? Were they all the same type of error?
-Chasen

 

[mad jew]

Well I'll be buggered. I made one Tritanomaly error. I never realised I was a bit colour blind. Thanks for the test Doctor Q.

Or maybe I just need to re-calibrate my monitor...




Edit: re-calibrated and got 100%... And I was so excited too...

 

[iMeowbot]

I think it just means that people aren't as used to more 'antiquated'-type fonts for numbers? I dunno... I saw it w/ no problems.

It is a rather goofy looking three! Maybe it would stand out more on an original card at full resolution?

 

[UKnjb]

Here is another type of color blindness test: 10 slides where you identify which colored dot looks most like the one in the center. It points out each mistake as you go, so for me it says "You have just made a Protanomalous type of matching error" after most of them, confirming what I already know.

Even though I know I'm colour-blind, I had a look at this test because I'm always looking for a fiddle-factor to try and convince myself that I'm better at seeing colour than I know I am. I scored a miserable 1/10 and suspect that I was just guessing on that single correct answer. Purple Haze (whatever that is).

 

[dubbz]

I think it just means that people aren't as used to more 'antiquated'-type fonts for numbers? I dunno... I saw it w/ no problems.

Ye, I was thinking the same. The style is maybe slightly uncommon, and at some points the lines are closer than usual to the middle of the 3.


Took that test and got 10/10. I actually made an Tritanomalous error at the first attempt, but it was possibly because I'm somewhat nearsighted and was sitting rather far away from the screen (so the dots were slighty blurry).

 

[whooleytoo]

Here is another type of color blindness test: 10 slides where you identify which colored dot looks most like the one in the center. It points out each mistake as you go, so for me it says "You have just made a Protanomalous type of matching error" after most of them, confirming what I already know.

Ok, now I'm blind as well as colour blind! - I did the test but didn't see any score, where does it appear?!?

 

[nightdweller25]

Wow...

I was born colorblind as well, but not in the same manner as Doctor Q. I have trouble distinguishing between similar colors, pink and red, blue and green, black and dark brown, and forget about light colors. If it wasn't for my mom, would have flunked kinder

 

[freeny]

Um, I'm not colour blind but I don't see a "3" in your first image Q. I see a very clear "8".

I just wet myself!

 

[dubbz]

Ok, now I'm blind as well as colour blind! - I did the test but didn't see any score, where does it appear?!?

It won't display a score. It will just notify you right after one of the tests if you got it wrong. Just add it together yourself If you only got the last, final, screen then congrats! Your colour vision is perfect.

 

[whooleytoo]

It won't display a score. It will just notify you right after one of the tests if you got it wrong. Just add it together yourself If you only got the last, final, screen then congrats! Your colour vision is perfect.

Wow, surprising! It's strange I did so well in that test and so poorly in the coloured dots test (such as the original test in this thread). Maybe the nurse was holding it upside down?

 

[adroit]

Just wondering about how hard it is for people who are colour blind to get a driver license.

I know that in Canada (or at least in BC) you'll have to take a colour blind test and if you fail the test will you still get the license? I just notice that most people here who are colour blind are still able to drive so I am just curious how the system works.

 

[Doctor Q]

By the way, totally irrelevant to this post, but on tshirthell.com, theres a shirt that says "F*** The Colorblind" in the circle thing above, and my friend sent it to me (of course, not knowing I [kind of] am) and I couldn't see it, so I didn't get it. Thats the only time it has negatively affected me.

That T-shirt is very clever and hilarious.

Since I don't favor shirts with foul language in large letters (it's bad enough that I wear mismatched clothes, a pocket protector, and a propellor cap), I have an idea for a variation on the theme. Have it say

Don't tell my color blind husband that I'm seeing somebody else!​

Then wives could wear it while walking around with their color blind husbands. Or wives can pretend their husbands are color blind and get the same reaction from other people!

 

[iBlue]

That T-shirt is very clever and hilarious.

Since I don't favor shirts with foul language in large letters (it's bad enough that I wear mismatched clothes, a pocket protector, and a propellor cap), I have an idea for a variation on the theme. Have it say

Don't tell my color blind husband that I'm seeing somebody else!​

Then wives could wear it while walking around with their color blind husbands. Or wives can pretend their husbands are color blind and get the same reaction from other people!

hehehe how evil! there could be a nicer way to get the same effect out of that shirt... like "colorblind people are really weird." or something on the lines of "hahaha colorblind people can't read this" and put a face on it in the fashion of those dots with numbers. that other saying is a bit hostile.

 

[iMeowbot]

Thats also why I've heard Windows is better for colorblind or disabled - though many people on here hate it, everything is so presented to you without having to look for it. On a Mac, its colored, so everything looks great for most people but those with colorblindness have a tough time seeing everything.

And at the same time, many people who deal with color on Macs prefer the all-gray Graphite theme! Those corner gumdrops might be more helpful if the X/•, - and + symbols were shown all the time instead of only when the mouse is there, but maybe their color doesn't matter so much?

 

[whooleytoo]

hehehe how evil! there could be a nicer way to get the same effect out of that shirt... like "colorblind people are really weird." or something on the lines of "hahaha colorblind people can't read this" and put a face on it in the fashion of those dots with numbers. that other saying is a bit hostile.

Or how about: "The cure for colourblindness is..."

(Incidentally, I just took a look at the T-shirt, can't see as much as one letter!)

 

[Doctor Q]

There is an excellent article about web design and color blindness at informit.com, called "Website Type and Colour for the Visually Impaired".

It makes this point, which I haven't before seeing stated so well:

Colourblind kids are like kids with dyslexia or learning disabilities: They often learn ways to adapt and function in a way essentially equivalent to nondisabled people. Over a lifetime, a great many kludges, rules of thumb, and forms of guesswork develop to make sense of a world whose colours they see differently. Since nearly all colourblind people can distinguish brightness and contrast, that's one way they identify that two colours are different. They may not know from direct experience what the colours look like to someone with "colour-normal" vision, but they know the hues are not the same. Colourblind people learn that certain objects are certain colours. If an unknown object comes along with an unknown true colour, they can make an educated guess based on the colour used to describe other objects with that same apparent colour and brightness. ("People tell me things that look this colour are dark red, so I'll hazard a guess that this thing is dark red, too.")

It also makes two points I didn't mention earlier about the red-green color blind:

1. Deuteranopes (who can't see green) are more common than protanopes (who can't see red), so as a protanope I'm even in the minority of the red-green color blind population.

2. Protanopes are less able than deuteranopes to detect brightness differences. As a result, red looks very dark to me. I already mentioned blood looking black to me. Another example: The typical shades they use for dark car colors, namely black, dark red, dark brown, and dark green, look mostly the same to me.

 

[mkrishnan]

I just noticed this thread. It's great. *loves all the colorblind MR'ers*

I'm not colorblind, FWIW.

The research on the four photopigments was interesting. I knew that there there were multiple MWS cones, but I didn't know that one woman could have genes coding for both of them at the same time, and express both of them. Thanks for sharing that, wordmunger! I went and grabbed the journal article talking about it. It's interesting, though, that no one appears to really have done research on this topic since this paper was published four years ago....

 

[UKnjb]

Colourblind kids are like kids with dyslexia or learning disabilities: They often learn ways to adapt and function in a way essentially equivalent to nondisabled people. Over a lifetime, a great many kludges, rules of thumb, and forms of guesswork develop to make sense of a world whose colours they see differently. Since nearly all colourblind people can distinguish brightness and contrast, that's one way they identify that two colours are different. They may not know from direct experience what the colours look like to someone with "colour-normal" vision, but they know the hues are not the same. Colourblind people learn that certain objects are certain colours. If an unknown object comes along with an unknown true colour, they can make an educated guess based on the colour used to describe other objects with that same apparent colour and brightness. ("People tell me things that look this colour are dark red, so I'll hazard a guess that this thing is dark red, too.")

Hmmmm - OK up to a point, excep that for across-the-spectrum colour blind people (like me) that just does not work. I am not at all sure that I can distinguish differences in brightness or contrast (except for a restricted number of colours, blue and brown, both against a uniform background are the only ones that I am confident about). Things are either light or dark to me and adopt a uniform 'colour' that is dictated, in part, by the predominant background colour and lighting conditions. As in, the garden here has a load of green stuff in it (I know, because I have been told! Grass, leafy shrubs etc.). Any flowers, red, yellow, whatever, take on aspects of the overrall 'garden' colour; they don't stand out as being different from the grass of green shrubs or anything, just a different shade of a sludgy 'brown'. Probably not explaining this at all well, but you should well understand the problems of describing these things adequately.

What sort of objects do we learn as having particular colours associated with them? I am not familiar with them - but then the above garden analogy might explain it. Some examples might help to see if I do 'learn' these things unknowingly.

This has been a brilliant thread!!!

 

[Doctor Q]

Hmmm... SilentPanda and dotdotdot and I are color blind and all have black and white avatars! How suspicious!

I see some other avatars in this thread that are shades of gray too. I wonder if this is just a coincidence.

It is a coincidence for my avatar, since I change it now and then and it just happens to be about some black and white creatures at the moment.

 

[Doctor Q]

As in, the garden here has a load of green stuff in it (I know, because I have been told! Grass, leafy shrubs etc.). Any flowers, red, yellow, whatever, take on aspects of the overrall 'garden' colour; they don't stand out as being different from the grass of green shrubs or anything, just a different shade of a sludgy 'brown'. Probably not explaining this at all well, but you should well understand the problems of describing these things adequately.

I think gardens with light colors (light green, white, yellow) and blue are nice looking. When the colors are brown, dark green, and red, I find it less attractive, because it all looks the same.

Which is why I was once fired from a job, the only time I've ever been fired. As a young teen I was hired by some neighbors to water their garden. One day they said they didn't want me to work for them any more, without saying why. My mom found out later it was because I didn't water the brown areas that needed water more than the green areas. I didn't realize I was missing crucial information and they never asked me about it. I had to give up my career in horticulture and become a computer scientist instead.

What sort of objects do we learn as having particular colours associated with them? I am not familiar with them - but then the above garden analogy might explain it. Some examples might help to see if I do 'learn' these things unknowingly.

"Grape soda is purple." "Jeans are blue." If I run into blue grape soda or purple jeans, I wouldn't know the difference, but I call them the colors I've learned are correct without thinking. I assume that cake frosting is pink and not gray because I've never heard of gray frosting. I'm so used to octagonal stop signs being red that I'd assume anything dark that said "STOP" was red and probably that any dark octagonal sign was red.

It just occurred to me, from thinking about this, that I've always assumed that fire alarm switches (the ones kids pull in school as pranks) are red, because I know fire engines are red, but I've never thought to ask about it.

Post-It pads ("sticky notes") come in any color you like, and I can't tell certain shades of green from yellow, but I assume any Post-It that's one of those two colors is yellow. I'm right practically all the time, which reinforces that habit.

Happy faces are yellow too, right? I assume that this --> <-- is yellow, but I've never asked, because it's so unlikely to be the shade of green I confuse with yellow. This --> <--- could be red or brown but I "know" (in quotes) that it is red because it means "mad". This --> <-- looks blue (right?) and I can tell that this --> <--- is a different shade, but not what color it is. Blue? Purple? Gray?

The shades and objects for which you make color assumptions may be different than mine, UKnjb, but I'd expect that you have similar habits.

 

[mkrishnan]

It just occurred to me, from thinking about this, that I've always assumed that fire alarm switches (the ones kids pull in school as pranks) are red, because I know fire engines are red, but I've never thought to ask about it.

They are.

You're an amazing person, by the way. *loves*

 

[iBlue]

Happy faces are yellow too, right? I assume that this --> <-- is yellow, but I've never asked, because it's so unlikely to be the shade of green I confuse with yellow. This --> <--- could be red or brown but I "know" (in quotes) that it is red because it means "mad". This --> <-- looks blue (right?) and I can tell that this --> <--- is a different shade, but not what color it is. Blue? Purple? Gray?

yellow
red
pink (it's blushing, awwww) <- that is a lighter pink
= purple
the cheesy grin guy is bright green and all the rest are blue.

 

[Bosunsfate]

On the last project I did in Rotterdam we had a requirement to make sure our application was compatible for color blind users. This intially threw us off since we used a lot of color contrasting in our features.

The result is that we spent a very educating time revisiting how users interact with our applications. The benefit was that we had a better product that was certainly easier to use by all.