Approximately 8% of men have some form of colour vision deficiency, or colour blindness, making it difficult for them to differentiate between colours that most people take for granted.
For example, red and green are often used to indicate opposites, but these are the colours most likely to be confused by those with colour vision deficiencies.
Some careers, like piloting, pathology, surveying and electrical work, require the ability to differentiate colours, so colour blindness can be a serious liability that closes doors on career dreams.
However, for others, it’s just a lifelong series of unnecessarily confusing interactions, demonstrating that the world isn’t designed for people like them.
The most common type of colour blindness is red-green colour blindness, affecting 350 million people worldwide.
Designers could make minor changes such as never using colour as the sole indicator of meaning, or using a colour-blind safe palette, to make a huge difference to a lot of people.
More and more often, apps and games are adding colour-blind modes or shifting their palettes to be more friendly to the colour-blind, helping to improve inclusivity.