Colblindor

Richard’s Life as a Color-Blind

Daniel Flück — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:38:20 +0000

Richard was so friendly to write his answers in detail on The Color Blindness Project Questionnaire. Thanks! I thought putting this together into an article by itself makes it more public to other interested readers. So the here are his answers:

When did you first discover you were colourblind?
My parents suspected when I was about 4. I could arrange the vivid primary coloured blocks of my toys, but anything less than vivid, crayons, clothes food, I was misidentifying what colour they were.

A trip to The Natural History Museum in London with an exhibit on the eye, and on colour vision, confirmed this when I did all the classic misreading of the Ishihara test. By the time the formal colour test rolled around at school, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

How did you discover you were colourblind?
Well aside from being told the story above, it was for me, being simply unable to colour things in correctly or recognise colours.

For years, my anti-smoking posters at school had cigarette butts in brightest green.

My Union Jack was easy to identify: It was purple and orange.

All my drawings throughout my youth were in my own special palette.

And it continues. There was a lot of hoo-ha in the news recently about our beloved British brand Cadbury being taken over by US Multinational Kraft, “the famous purple wrapper” the newsman announced. — Purple? I’m 29. I had no idea. I thought it was blue.

What are the issues/problems you have faced being colourblind?
Well disability, let’s just define that, depends on how society is organised. What I have is an altered sensitivity to the spectrum, this only matters when things are categorised by colour, then I am adrift in a canoe without a paddle.

An example, only a trivial one, I was attending a job interview and the waiting area was a calendar which denoted all the religious festivals of about 10 different faiths. The key was colour code and the days and months were festooned with little coloured dots, which were meant to be wonderfully informative about which religious festivals fell on which days. I couldn’t tell them apart. Moreover if someone had been there and said what about that one, what colour is that? I’d have been guessing. I’ve gotten pretty good at that: guessing. And false positives are self correcting.

I see what I think are the colours but I have very little ability to tell them apart. I’m a diagnosed protanope so very strong red blind, and this cuts a swathe through my sensitivity to reds, greens, browns, yellow, oranges, and the pseudoisochromatic colours with which I can (and do) confuse them.

Thus, red can appear black or dark grey, but not always. Blood for instance to me looks brown, very dark. I do see a red – coca cola cans for example, but I’d bet what I think of as red probably isn’t and is very much dependent on the context. Take my coca-cola red and put it on a snooker table and I bet I’d confuse that red with something else. That’s why grass is green. Of course grass is green. But green in other contexts is where hue, and brightness combine to confound me.

Blue and purple, covered that one.

Orange and certain browns.

Yellow and green.

Grey, certain greens and pink are completely interchangeable.

Everyone all thinks traffic lights are hard, they aren’t – not really. You learn them by sequence. What they aren’t is the right colours. The two red and amber, to me look like slightly different species of yellow. And the green at the bottom, is white – it looks like an ordinary light bulb.

Of slightly more difficulty are brake-lights. Recognising those from tail lights is hard. I’ve hit the brakes hard, once to often now to believe that I’m not just a bad driver.

How did you overcome the shortcomings?
I have very sympathetic parents. My brother is the same, so they coped with both of us down the years.

Teachers, I think don’t get it. And I don’t blame them. Colours are a second alphabet. People assume you know what they are talking about. Even when you tell them, if they remember at all, it’s rare that they alter their behaviour.

And what do you tell them?

I’m colour blind?

What you can’t see colours?

Well..no..or …yes..but..I..can’t tell them apart.

What colours’ this [ ]* then?

*[ ] insert nearest object here.

and that’s how it usually goes.

Colour vision deficiency takes longer to say, as does the explanation, and I prefer it but I don’t think it helps people understand. I’d prefer they had a solid grounding in colour-theory instead.

It’s taken some time for me to get my head round it, but I am not sensitive (cannot see) certain hues. The hues I can see are modulated by brightness. A sufficiently bright green is as yellow to me. Purple’s an interesting one, because what is reflected is blue and red light, I can detect the blue, I am insensitive to the red, all purples are species of lighter or darker blues.

My solutions are if it’s important that it’s coloured I label it. It is simply no good relying on me to see a colour and recognise it. I need that second level of information like a name written down. Second, I ask people. I’m pretty up front about saying I’m colour blind – I can’t see that. What colour is it? That usually works, with the above caveat that no-one has any idea what I’m actually talking about.

In my own life it was pointed out to me, that I shop for clothes by texture, I’ll go around scrunch up shirt sleeves and jumpers to see how they feel, what they look like is secondary. My wardrobe also reflects a certain bias. Lots of blues (which I can see) Lots of dark colours, greys, a few greens (definitely green not pink) and black.

What else can be included/excluded in the guide book for parents other than the ones described above to make it more comprehensive?
Oooh. I wouldn’t want to frighten them. An introduction to Ishihara—as that is what they will likely encounter and have to sit with their child through, what it means and how it diagnoses.

I think I would personally want an easy to understand overview of what colour is (wavelengths of light), the idea of a colour gamut, a colour space, (RGB etc). And then how colourblindness changes that. How the Ishihara dots are painted in the pseudoisochromatic colours that exist in those spaces for people like me who lack sensitivity to one of the spectral colours of light.

What it means: not that my world is uncoloured. I swear to you it isn’t. I just have no idea what those colours are called. It’s rather like having a virtuoso chef who can create all the world’s dishes out of only three ingredients. A little of this, a little of that, a pinch of the other and *foompf* Egg salad nicoise. And then taking away one his ingredients. Yes he can still make all those different foods in all the variety, but without that extra thing, everything he makes is just the little bit more bland and samey. You can’t really tell them apart anymore. That would be flavour blindness. I’m colourblind in the same way.

Thank you very much Richard for this great insights.

the clock i cant see — Ishihara Dots Everywhere

Daniel Flück — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:32:52 +0000

I just stumbled upon the clock i cant see. The sonodesign team used the Ishihara plates as starting point for the design of this nice clock. Can you read the numbers? I definitely need my sons assistance.

clock i cant see — Ishihara plates based clock

It is not the clock to buy while your colorblind son tries to learn it, but it looks nice anyway: the clock i cant see.

The Color Blindness Project Questionnaire

Daniel Flück — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:54:01 +0000

Joanna is doing a project on color blindness. She wants to create a guidebook for parents to help them in the diagnosis of their child’s color vision. To fulfill her project she created an online survey to research and discuss the topic of color vision deficiency.

The proposed content of her guidebook sounds very promising. It will probably include the following topics:

When to identify – age group
How to identify – developing tests for kids
What to do – step by step for parents (doctor visit, school – what to tell/give the teacher)
How to equip house/classroom (safety first)
How to educate friends/family/community
How to teach their child to navigate neighbourhoods/MRT/shops/traffic lights etc…
Identifying danger hotspots

As I am strongly color blind, I would like to present you in the following my answers to the survey:

When did you first discover you were colorblind?
At the age of about six in my first year at school.

How did you discover you were colorblind?
We had to paint a picture with color crayons. I painted the sky very solid—in pink. I thought it was blue until somebody told me that I was wrong. Only then, after a closer look at the color, I also realized that I’ve chosen the wrong color.

What are the issues/problems you have faced being colorblind? (as a child, navigating, identifying, naming, differentiating colors etc…)
As a child I new the colors of my crayons by heart. So far no problem. But if we had to paint I didn’t really like it so much because knowing the right colors or even mixing them was and still is a big issue.

Later at school I specially remember my chemistry lessons. We had to use some color coding to find certain elements, I never really could master this part.

While I was looking around for an apprenticeship I was interested to become an electrician. But I had to many problems with the color coding of the resistors, so I withdrew that thought.

These days I struggle with fitting clothes colors, any form of LED colors, seeing if something is occupied (red) or not (green), seeing nice flowers, seeing fruits and know if they are ripe or not and of course with naming any sort of color. I just guess colors or know them by heart, but I never really see colors, or I’m to unsure to know if it is right or not.

How did you overcome the shortcomings? (ways/solutions you found helped you in the process? how? who helped you?)
I think my only real technique to overcome my color blindness is to ask. Ask friends, work mates, family members and sometimes even some sale assistants. They help me besides making some jokes from time to time.

Lately I found out about a little big helper called Seekey. A great little tool specially if it comes to identifying LED colors.

What else can be included/excluded in the guide book for parents other than the ones described above to make it more comprehensive?
I think the most important thing is that parents should relax. Let your child first a chance to develop its color vision. And after that if you really find out that your child is color blind, don’t panic. There are millions of color blind people around the world who master their life perfectly. Yes I know, your child might not be able to become a pilot, police officer or firefighter. But think about it, this is not the end and many others also don’t have that chance because of a lot of other handicaps.

If you are also colorblind please consider filling out the online survey at The Color Blindness Project Questionnaire and help Joanna on the way to produce her parents guidebook about color vision deficiency.

ColorAdd: A Color Coding System

Daniel Flück — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:22:18 +0000

The designer Miguel Neiva developed a color coding system called ColorAdd which shall help colorblind people around the world. Simple and easy with many applications. Let’s have a closer look at it.

ColorAdd Basic Color Shapes

The system is based on three basic color shapes representing the primary colors blue, yellow, red and two forms for black and white. While mixing those basic graphics like you would mix colors themselves this results in a list of 21 basic colors including lighter (mixing in white) and darker (mixing in black) shades.

21 Basic Color Codes of the ColorAdd System

This is it. Some more shapes for grey, silver and gold, but nothing else. That’s the whole ColorAdd system. At the first glance this is really simple and easy.

The designer claims that you don’t really have to memorize all those shapes as it works like mixing real colors. If you know the basic shapes you’re all set. In a way that’s true. But as I’m not that good on mixing colors—remember I am colorblind—I have to think about it twice if I’m right with my color mixture guess.

Simple: Yes. But somewhere you have to explain the system in my language as the symbols can’t easily be associated with the right colors.
Intuitively: No. Why don’t you use some sort of symbols which everybody associates with a certain color like fire, water and sun?
Nice design: Yes. Yes I like it. Simple shapes, they are nice to look at.
Robust usage: No. Hold some of them upside down and you will get the wrong color.

But the most important question to answer is: Can this color coding system be an added value for color blind people? This is what the designer claims and what it is actually all about. I don’t think so. Here are a few examples in my everyday life to support my point of view:

The banana couldn’t change such a shape if it turns ripe. A big issue for me.
Red/green led lights often already include some icon to show you something. So you can’t enhance them with another one and I’ll never know if it’s red or green.
Ok, I would know if my shirt is blue or green. But I’m still not sure if it matches my purple tie or red trousers.
And in most cases already now the manufacturers could add some sort of icon or pattern to help colorblind users in many situations. But they don’t do it and such a color code wouldn’t be easier to decipher than some simple icons.

Nice but unusable for me. I would be very glad if I get proven wrong in the future, if ColorAdd starts to get used and enhances my life in some way I can’t see yet.

Do Color Blind People Perceive a Colorful Life?

Daniel Flück — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:31:02 +0000

Sarah contacted me to learn more on how color-blind people perceive our colorful world. Everybody can generate images which simulate this visual handicap with my color blindness simulator Coblis. But this isn’t the whole story, as those pictures can’t tell you how colorblind people think about this colorful—or in this case colorless—world.

Sarah put together some really interesting questions concerning the perception of color and how I handle this as a quite strongly colorblind man. Here are my answers to her questionnaire:

Sarah: I’m interested in the perception of color to one’s self, mostly. How do you describe colors to yourself (when others are not around)? For instance, what does ‘colorful’ mean to you? Do you conjure up an image of rich blues, yellows, and whites, or do you include red and green (what you perceive to be red and green, anyway) in that definition?

Colblindor: I included this picture as an example for what colorful means to me. If it includes red or green, I can’t tell you. So I can not tell you which colors I explicitly include to name something colorful as I can’t name them. I would say a colorful thing needs at least three to four clearly distinguishable colors for me. This could also be a fire truck red and a grass green combined with some blue or yellow. On the other side I can tell you that there are certain pictures which are not colorful for my eyes but seem to be colorful if you are not colorblind yourself.

Sarah: In your own mind (just yourself, all alone), do you describe the world around you in shades of blue and yellow, or do you throw red and green into the mix? For example, if you saw a brightly lit Christmas tree, would you say to yourself that you see a lot of blue and yellow lights, or would you describe colors you think might be red, green, purple, etc.?

Colblindor: If you dig a little deeper into the topic of color blindness you can learn, that moderate to strong color-blind people have problems along the whole color spectrum (see Colorblind Colors of Confusion). I am strongly red-blind and therefore have also problems for example with blue/violet/purple or blue-green/gray/purple. — Personally I would say I don’t attach color names to my visual perception. I only name them when somebody else asks about it and this very often puts me into a position, where I just can’t name it or even describe it properly.

Sarah: Do you describe things to yourself as being red/green/etc. when the situation does not call for a need to tell the exact color? For example, grass is green and everyone is taught this at a young age, but when you’re just walking around by yourself, do you ever mistake grass for being yellow/another color (before remembering it’s green)?

Colblindor: As I described above I don’t really actively perceive colors attributing names to them, only if I learned the color of something (green grass). In this case I just know the color name but don’t clearly perceive it. Therefore I can’t really say that I sometimes mistake anything for having a wrong color. Sometimes I get confused if I know something always has a certain color (for example red) and I perceive it completely differently. In this case I ask myself if this is really the color it should be or if the source of the problem is somewhere else.

Sarah: I can use certain color filters that show me what some images might look like to someone with a color vision deficiency. To my color normal eyes, these filters for red-green deficiency make a rainbow look like a streak of yellow in the sky. Is that how you would describe it too? If not, how do you perceive it?

Colblindor: Rainbows look like rainbows. Rainbows are not to colorful for my eyes but anyway a beautiful phenomenon. In colors I would say blue-something-yellow-some other color streak. By the way, the picture wall on this image looks very colorful to me, even if I can’t tell you at all which colors I see.

Sarah wants to learn a lot more about color blindness. She says: “I’d love to talk to anyone with any form of color vision deficiency”. So if you feel like chatting just contact her directly at sarahvas84@gmail.com.

Rainbow photo by Cavin