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Approximately 0.4% 0f people have some form of colour blindness that makes it difficult for them them to see colour the same way that people without this condition do.

There are a number of colour blindness conditions, the three main categories are:

Protanopia

This is the so-called red-weak group. For these people the colours red, orange, yellow and yellow-green are shifted towards green.

Dueteranopia

This is the so-called green-weak group. These people struggle with small differences in the red, orange, yellow and green region of the spectrum. The majority of folks with colour blindness fall within this group.

Tritanopia

This is a very rare blue-yellow colour blindness.

All of this does of-course mean that we as website developers have a problem. We can either discard this section of the possible users of our sites or we have to make some or other provision for colour blindness. Just what can we do?

• Do not rely on color coding alone.
• Make use of relative font-sizes to ensure that users can re-size text within the browsers.
• Ensure that there is sufficient background-foreground contrast.
• Avoid using red-green or blue-yellow colour combinations.

The easiest way of ensuring that your site caters for all these people is to design your site in black and white. Only when your design is complete should you add colour for emphasis. Colour should never be used as the only visual cue for anything.

I am sure there are quite a few colour blind folk out there that would love to make use of YOUR site.

These posts might be related:

1. Guidelines to cater for visually impaired users
2. Just what are the accessibility standards?
3. Do it yourself accessibility
4. Help yourself as well as others
5. Website accessibility is not only for the disabled