Color blindness is the lack of ability to see certain colors in usual way. A color blind person can’t differentiate in certain colors especially in red and green. In European countries 6 to 8% men and about half percent women are suffering from color blindness. In Asia this statistics goes with 5% males. Around 10.5 million Americans are suffering from this color deficiency.
Web Designing & Color Blindness
A wide range of colors are used by web designers while designing an interactive web page design. Every designer wants his website to be accessible by everyone including color blind person. Designing a color blind friendly website doesn’t mean that you have a constraint while choosing colors for your web pages. All you have to do is just take care of some color combination in web pages.
Red and green colors are often used to indicate “Stop” and “Go” or sometimes used for safe and danger respectively in most countries. And these two colors are a curse for a person with color blindness. If you use these colors together in your designing then it would be a complete lost for a color blind person. If you want your website is accessible by everyone then you must consider color impaired visitors too. You may be thinking that why consider such a small number of audience while designing your website. But for your surprise the fact is shocking that one out of twelve visitors on your website can be a color deficient person.
Tips for making website easily accessible by color deficient person
As an experienced web designer you must know about color combinations to make your design interactive and more compelling. By taking care of certain tips you can make web better for your people who are not equally blessed as you. Here are some tips to make color blind friendly websites:
- Don’t put green and red together. Especially avoid it on a navigation button where text can merge into the background, which can make it hard to read. Try to choose colors with awareness. You can go with a design choice which may affect color blind people negatively, but do it deliberately if you really needed. It’s better if you can provide an alternative for them.
- Choose images with extra care. Image plays an important role in web designing. You should choose your images with an extra care so that they can have same effect on color deficient person too. Avoid using maps which have red and green lines to identify some important things. Use bar charts and Pi charts of colors different than green and red.
- Don’t use only colors for vital things. For example, if you want to fill a form on your page by a visitor, never make the text red or green because it can be hard enough for a color blind person. Never use color identification as alternative to fill captcha on your website.
- Test your website before launching. It is advisable if you can test your website by a color blind person. May be you can find a friend or relative who is suffering from this deficiency.
Taking above tips in consideration you can make a website which is accessible by even color deficient people. In this way you can get maximum exposure via your website and are able to find more targeted visitors.
Jack Sam White spends most of his time writing for small business Website Design Company, SiteSpices. He has been a writer for several years and has also served as an online marketing specialist.