: views from the Hill

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Vischeck

Vischeck has an absolutely amazing tool!

I've griped at Web developers forever about designing for the colorblind amongst us. "Please no red lettering on a black background," I'd say. "Ja, ja, ja. I know you think it's pretty, but a good percent of your users won't be able to see your text, let alone read it." They'd act like I was demented.

According to legalarts.com, "About eight percent of Caucasian males, five percent of Asiatic males, and three percent of males of other races are affected by dyschromatopsia. Only about a half-percent of females of any given race are affected." That's a good number of users who are affected by Web designers that don't (or won't) understand the situation.

Vischeck's Web tool takes a given URL and returns a page that shows how the page would appear to someone with one of the three major types of color blindness - perfect for showing why-should-I-care designers where their oh-so-flashy sites will stumble. Great!

The site also has examples of how the colorblind see various images differently from the non-colorblind. Other information too.

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