Best colors to pick for color blind folks

[+Propane13]

Hello all,

 

I need to pick 10 unique colors that are different for a little project I'm working on.

I was just going to randomly pick from here: http://www.qotile.net/minidig/docs/tia_color.html

But then, I realized that I have no concept of how to deal with people with a degree of color-blindness.

 

Would anyone be able to suggest what colors are "too close" so that I make good picks?

 

Thanks!

-John

[+Gemintronic]

This page seems to have plenty of information:

http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/

 

I think it boils down to using high contrast and double checking your game by going monochrome.

[+SpiceWare]

There are multiple types of color-blindness. Colors that are a good selection for one may not work out so well for another so it's best to use different shapes if possible.

 

you can use an online color-blindness simulator, such as this one.

[+Omegamatrix]

I'm red-green color blind. The best you can do is just post a few colors you want to try and get feedback.

 

The worst of it is when colors are flickering, or the objects are small with many shades of color.

 

I know what you mean by colors that are far apart. Traffic lights have the colors that they do so color-blind people can distinguish them too. They might not see the same color, but they will see three unique colors that they can identify. For the record traffic lights appear to me as red, yellow, and green. I am told that the green is actually composed of white light, but I think most people see it as green too.

[Schizophretard]

I'm red-green color blind. The best you can do is just post a few colors you want to try and get feedback.

 

The worst of it is when colors are flickering, or the objects are small with many shades of color.

 

I know what you mean by colors that are far apart. Traffic lights have the colors that they do so color-blind people can distinguish them too. They might not see the same color, but they will see three unique colors that they can identify. For the record traffic lights appear to me as red, yellow, and green. I am told that the green is actually composed of white light, but I think most people see it as green too.

 

What do you mean by composed of white light?

[+Random Terrain]

I was just going to randomly pick from here: http://www.qotile.ne.../tia_color.html

 

When choosing colors for people who are not color blind, you might want to be using this:

 

www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-tia-color-charts.html#ntsc_color_tool

 

It will let you instantly see what Atari 2600 colors look like on top of other Atari 2600 colors. It will be pretty clear which colors look great together and which ones look like crap.

[Atarifever]

I had this whole post done up explaining colour blindness and making suggestions, then I re-read the first post. 10 colours. Forget it. I'm only a very simple kind of colour blind, but there aren't 10 colours on that chart that I could tell apart all from each other. No way, no how. Give me that much colour information to work with and I'll lose track. Either a brown will end up looking green, or a blue will look purple, etc. Impossible. Give me any 10 of those colours appearing at different locations and different intervals and I'll fail to distinguish between at least two of them.

 

I can do 5, maybe 6. On NTSC I could reliably do 0 E-F to 5 E-F, but not really differences in shade up any of those columns. I can't really tell anything from anything else in the entire 6,7,8, and 9 columns, except maybe the 0-3s from the C-Fs, but even that would slow me down a ton in a game ("is this the light or the dark one.... hmmmm...?"). Pretty much everything in B-F can be confused with something in 0 to 5.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I have trouble distinguishing blue and green in poor lighting, but never had any problems with reds and greens though. Ever walk around in the dark? Your eyes will only see in shades of gray then, and then in low definition. Well people who are colorblind still see in high definition, but the colors are muted. I once created a Photoshop filter that used the channel mixer to convert images from tricolor RGB into dual color amber-sky blue tones. Basically green and magenta got muted to gray, and the two primary colors are represented as 100% red + 50% green, and 100% blue + 50% green. Certain animals are partially colorblind. For instance cats and dogs are dichromatic, having two primary cones instead of three like humans: blue and amber. I believe bulls and deer are completely colorblind, and many birds have quad-chroma vision: red, green, blue, and UVA (centered about 370nm, like a black-light). Insects have blue-green and UVA receptors and also cannot detect any red or amber wavelengths. The center of most flowers have UV markers in them to attract pollinating insects. Solid color flowers like daisies often have brightly colored centers similar to pansies when photographed under UV light. In fact the red cones in human eyes are mildly receptive to UV light, which is why violet (shorter wavelength than true blue) is indistinguishable to purple (about two parts blue and one part red) in humans. It is also why certain shades of purple show up different under different lighting.

 

Best advice I could give as far as fashion sense for colorblind people, is to wear high contrast black and white outfits, or go for multiple shades of the same color for instance light green top with dark green pants. Certain combos of gray or brown might also work, but be careful not to go overly plain. Most definately, if someone is completely color blind, they need to shop with a friend who has good fasion sense.

[Atarifever]

Certain animals are partially colorblind. For instance cats and dogs are dichromatic, having two primary cones instead of three like humans: blue and amber.

This is a common misunderstanding. This is true for dogs, but not cats. Cats and dogs respond similarly on tests of colour, but it's because dogs honestly fail, and cats are, honestly, just total assholes. A cat won't respond to colour anymore than it will respond to love, kindness, anything with a soul, universal rules regarding right and wrong, loyalty, or basically anything other than food and a scratching post. Cats: evil. Pure evil. Feel free to love your cat, but know that it hates you. If you die, it will eat you once it gets hungry. Heck, if you sleep too long it will eat you if it gets bored.

 

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Andromeda Stardust]

So I take it your a cat hater. Sorry, I'm a cat lover. They do show affection to their owners, but just in different ways than dogs. Cats rub their scent glands on you, they purr, they'll crawl into your lap and let you pet them. I have two cats. Holly absolutely adores getting her belly rubed; she'll roll over as soon as I walk by, four paws in the air. Chriss will sometimes crawl into my mom's lap and they'll both doze off in the recliner. It is true it's more difficult to teach tricks to a cat, but it can be done. Cats generally lack the motivation to perform on command. Like Chris and Holly let me know they want to be cuddled by climbing into my lap. If I pick one of them up and hold them in my lap, they'll jump away. When I was a kid, I taught my childhood cat Whitey, to walk on his hind legs. First, I'd hold a treat in front of his nose, he'd sit up. Then I'd hold it over his head and he'd stand on his hind legs and I'd feed it to him. After a while, he got to where if I pulled the treat away from him, he would waddle forward for a few steps, standing erect entirely on his hind legs, to earn his treat. My mom and dad witnessed this on occasion, but Whitey simply refused to perform whenever I had company over. Wise-ass cat! He also cannily knew exactly when we were ready to take him to the vet, and would disappear for hours until we rescheduled the appointment. After several tries, we found his hiding spot in the pantry: he would actually pull the cabinet door open with his paw and sneak inside while the door shut behind him. He got rewarded with a vet visit, oh the irony!

[littleman jack]

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this one, as a few people stated earlier. Each colorblind person has a unique vision, and so there is no general answer. I think with 10 colors, color blind people will have some trouble. I have trouble with most colors, but especially green/red, red/brown, blue/purple, pink/gray, and all colors that are pale or light. Other than that, I see all the colors just fine . You probably should just make the best game you can, and hopefully most people will be able to play it. We colorblind people can check out the screenshots and instructions and then tell if it's playable for us. Thanks for asking!

[Jinks]

Cats personalities age while dogs stay at a kindergartener level their whole lives. It all really depends on the dog or cat for intelligence..