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Web Design Accommodating Color Blind Browsers
ithout color we would question is “Color-blind
live a dull existence. friendly”. Text might be
Imagine gazing into a illegible and images
grey sky or devouring a colorless unrecognizable. Consider the
chocolate cake? In the same amount of visitors and customer
manner that color bears great conversions that you might lose
significance in our daily lives, if your website is not accessible
so too does color play an and usable by the colorblind.
important if not crucial role
when designing a website. Color It is seen is considered
enhances, completes and gives a professional, and stands your
much needed presence to the image company in good stead to
or persona of a website. establish a website that doesn't
exclude the impaired or disabled.
Yet, there are browsers who are After all, an accessible website
not able to view the world in is more likely to be ranked well
full-blown color… with the search engines than an
inaccessible website.
Approximately 8% of males and
0.5% of females have a deficit in There are three different color
their color vision, due to an vision impairments to take into
inherited abnormality in the cone consideration.
cells of the retina. It’s unwise
not to take these browsers into Color is essentially perceived
account as their special needs because a light particle, or
could mean that 1 out of 20 photon, triggers a cell in the
visitors might not be able to use eye which is called a cone. The
a website at all or with great cone sends a signal to the brain
difficulty. This greatly depends that it has received a trigger.
on whether the website in Each kind of cone is responsible
for sensing a range of wavelength reduced color green sensitivity
thus centering on red, green, or
blue. Combinations of these cones •Tritanomaly Vision: reduced
fire at different intensities to color blue sensitivity
produce the spectrum of colors in
various degrees of brightness and •Dichromat Vision: Dichromat
saturation. Sometimes the vision, uses only 2 of the 3
instructions for the cones are visual pigments - red, green or
"wired" abnormally, causing the blue is missing.
cones to react to a different
range of light. Ninety-nine •Protanopia Vision: unable to
percent of color-blind people view color red.
have trouble distinguishing
between red and green. •Deuteranopia Vision: unable to
view color green.
•Trichromat Vision:"normal" color
vision, uses red/green/blue color •Tritanopia Vision: unable to
receptors ... this is the kind of view color blue.
vision that 11 out of 12 visitors
have. •Monochromat Vision: (able to see
only one color)
•Anomalous Trichromat Vision:
Anomalous Trichromat vision, uses This unpredictability makes it
three color receptors but one hard to simulate the color blind
pigment is misaligned browser. However, there are ways
and means to ‘get around’ these
•Protanomaly Vision: reduced limitations.
color red sensitivity
Designing for color-blind
•Deuteranomaly Vision (common): browsers
headers, and sub-headers need to
Although designing a website for be clear. Make sure that these
the colorblind will not limit items are very high in contrast.
your color palette, you’ll need This means that you should either
to be wary of the color make these items black and white
combinations that you use. or opposite ends of the color
Learning what color combinations saturation pole.
not effective is a great place to
start. •When using large format pieces
of copy, using dark text on a
As a rule of thumb, do away with white background is absolutely
Red and Green Combinations. essential. Use as much color as
Although most people see Red and you want in the surrounding parts
Green as contrasting, those with of the page, as long as it
Anomalous Trichromat Vision doesn't take away from the
Colorblindness will not be able contrast of the text.
to tell these colors apart. This
also goes for combinations with •If you aren't sure if a page is
variations of green and red, contrasted enough, desaturate
including colors such as purple your website in Fireworks or
and orange. Adobe Photoshop and see if the
images still have an impact.
•It is essential to establish the Desaturating the image will
most important content. The more remove all the color from the
important the content, the more image and this way you will be
important it is to make these able to tell if the image has
items “Color-blind friendly”. enough contrast without color to
be seen.
•Navigational text which includes
image and button text, menus, •When a dichromatic person sees
something green, both the red and color blind. Either run Vischeck
green cones are activated. Since on your own image files or on a
red and green make yellow, green web page. The Web Design
objects appear yellow. A site Evaluation Tool is also a free
that contains green text on a online utility that allows you to
yellow background causes both the see the 3 different ways that
text and the background to appear your page can look depending on
yellow, making the text the viewer's vision and color
invisible. A dichromatic person disability.
with green cones shifted toward
the red will also see the green Color-blind browsers form a huge
as more yellow. part of the global community and
therefore should be taken into
•Use Vischeck online which also consideration when designing a
allows you to see what a design website.
would look like to someone who is
About the Author:
This article has been provided by http://www.Approvedindex.co.uk/indexes/WebDesigners/default.aspx The Approved Index is a free service that allows you to instantly get multiple Website Design Quotes,with no-obligation by filling out just one simple form.
Read more articles by: Lindsay Wagner
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