Hi, my name is Mark, and I’m colorblind

Ja, ja, get the jokes over with - I’m a colorblind web designer. Laugh it up - you’re all going to hell.

My very caring and sensitive friend recently reminded me of the fact that I’m actually colorblind, when I happened to point out a grey wall that was actually green… grayish green. So I’m not 100% colorblind - I mean I can see when the traffic lights go from red to green etc, but I find that certain shades of certain colors aren’t easily identifiable. Like navy’s and purples and now apparently greys and greens and greens and browns too.

After doing some a bit of investigation, I realized that there’s actually quite a variety of colorblindness. Apparently, I’m whats called ‘deuteranopic’. So basically, when i look at the picture on the left, I see a marble tile type effect, but I cannot see any numbers in the picture… There’s people who can’t see the difference between green & red (dont let these guys drive), there’s blue and yellow colorblindness. By far the worst kind - colorblindness in its most dramatic form is known as ‘monochomacy’. These are people who can’t distinguish between any colors. For example, when pouring water into a cup, they can’t see where the water level is and have to use a little apparatus that beeps when the water gets to a certain level.

From a design point of view though, I found this paragraph quite interesting:

Good graphic design avoids using color coding or color contrasts alone to express information, as this not only helps color blind people, but also aids understanding by normally sighted people. The use of Cascading Style Sheets on the world wide web allows pages to be given an alternative color scheme for color-blind readers. This color scheme generator helps a graphic designer see color schemes as seen by eight types of color blindness. It is sometimes claimed that in extreme emergencies everyone is color blind. When the need to process visual information as rapidly as possible arises, for example in a train or aircraft crash, the visual system may operate only in shades of grey, with the extra information load in adding color being dropped. This is an important possibility to consider when designing, for example, emergency brake handles or emergency phones.

I don’t really feel like it hampers me any any way. It probably explains my website colorschemes sometimes, but mostly life as a colorblind person isn’t that bad and I dont give it much thought. It’ll be pretty whack one day though, if ’somehow’ I get full vision and I’m able to see colors. I guess only then I’ll be able to really know what I’m missing.

Ok, I’m off for a swim. The sea is looking lovely and pink today.