Comments on: Galcon color-blind Test

By: Tom Holden

Tom Holden — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:17:39 +0000

I agree with Robert Kern. I have a red-green color problem and am a retired military pilot. My problem is in the shades from a true color, so it affects any color that has an increase in red or green. Purples and lavenders will be blue, for instance. Red changes to green as shade deepens and back to red after it passes a certain undetermined shade. Amber and red are almost the same color and I can tell only if they are seen side by side. Rich green grass has always looked just like dark red. I’ve adapted by using intensity and contrast. So the green traffic light is really light blue, means go anyway. I personally don’t use anything that requires just color to identify controls. Unfortunately, each of us sees the colors differently too. What Robert sees as orange, I see as red. It’s not a perfect swap one color for another for all of us.
Hope this helps. Tom

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:43:40 +0000

Good point Josh. You might even be interested to know that color-blind people actually have certain advantages over ppl with regular vision. The population density of color-blindness is around 5% in males and 1% in females (because of X-linked recessive issues). This high occurance rate means that evolutionarily the phenotype must have some sort of advantage. It turns out that color blind ppl see different patterns, and in studies they are better able to detect some objects in spite of camoflauge than those with normal vision. In WWII aerial photographs analyzed by color-blind army intel agents yielded more information than those analyzed by only their normal vision counterparts. Unfortunately we have to adapt to the iphone, but all in all as you said its just not that big of a deal.

By: techsetter

techsetter — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:57:43 +0000

Chart 2:

2 & 5 look very similar -red (especially if I turn down the brightness)

3, 4 & 6 look alike (looks like purple)

7 & 9 look alike (light blue or purple?)

(or 7, 8 & 9 if the brightness is turned down)

10 & 11 (look like shades of gray)

Hope this helps.

By: techsetter

techsetter — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:52:21 +0000

Phil, you rock buddy. I bought Galcon and have been waiting for this.

I am red/green color blind (in addition to others) but here are the ones I cannot tell the difference between (or great difficulty trying to tell)

1st chart:

2 and 3 on your chart I can tell the difference between due to the different intensities (darker red, lighter green) but if the intensities were the same, I wouldn’t.

5 & 9 look very similar (almost the same)

same with 6 & 11

and 10 & 12,

Also if the brightness is turned down on my monitor 5, 9 & 11 ALL look the same as well as 3, 4, 7, 10 & 12… (ALL look like the same color)

Is this helping or only making things more complicated

What *may* help is giving each team/group a distinct intensity/brightness from each other, (a light blue vs a dark red or a dark, dark green versus a bright yellow)

I’ll post chart 2 in the next comment.

By: Taavi

Taavi — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:00:08 +0000

Try this application out:

http://michelf.com/projects/sim-daltonism/

It lets you see what colors on the screen would look like to people with a bunch of different types of color blindness. It’s pretty interesting.

By: Josh C

Josh C — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:25:23 +0000

First of all, im not trying to offend anyone when I say this. I am color blind. I see all colors. The problem is with colorblindness, it’s like you see the color but can’t put a name to it. For me, some purples and blues look similar, some greens and yellows look similar. I am sick and tired of people being descriminated for being color blind. We see color. Some more than others. I am a cop and don’t need to use color to describe a vehicle or person. Color blind people can fly planes, paint pictures, be electricians etc. They just need to be trained in what the colors are in that particular field they are working. Here’s a challenge. Next time your on the freeway at night, try and identify the color of cars from a distance. Bet they all look dark in color, maybe even black. (except the white and light color cars, I’m just talking about all the wierd greens, browns, reds, blues and other colors they have these days). What im saying is that color blind people can still do the same things normal colorvisonaries can they just need to be trained to see the color. the color bind population doesn’t need a compatible iphone, they just need to be taught how to use it with the colors already there.

By: philhassey

philhassey — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:19:21 +0000

Wow, nice

What I really could use is if someone who is colorblind came up with a palette that worked for them … Or maybe you could explain the algorithm from that chart? That would help me get things figured out …

Thanks!
-Phil

By: Robert Kern

Robert Kern — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:58:50 +0000

I threw together a few tables showing the perceptual color distance between each pair of colors in each palette. Additionally, I also simulated the appearance of the colors to red-green colorblind individuals using some code I already had.

http://www.enthought.com/~rkern/galcon_colors.html

By: Steve Dekorte

Steve Dekorte — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:48:51 +0000

I’m red/green color blind and neither set looks like it would work well.

I’d recommend using 1-5 from the first chart, 6 from the second chart, 10-12 from the second chart add black and come up with 2 more colors not used on either – maybe use alternating stripes or something.

By: Robert Kern

Robert Kern — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:31:40 +0000

I’m red-green color deficient (deuteroanomolous, to be precise). The only colors in current Galcon that I have a problem with are the yellow and green (3 and 4) and the blue and … other blue (1 and 6). The yellow and green are both about the same lightness while the red is darker. This is usually how I distinguish between red and green. And I just have problems with blues. However, I have more problems with the other set of colors. 3, 7, and 9 all look similar and 4 and 6 might as well be identical. You need more lightness contrasts. Most of us adapt to our colorblindness by using those contrasts. Thank you for paying attention to this!