[Closed] Colour Blind what issues do you have?

my dr recently diagnosed me as being colour blind, i must admit, it came completely out of the green

(i've offered no help here 🙁 , i apologise)

Colour coded spreadsheets or similar.
Especially when the text is small or on a coloured background.

+1 for toilet locks.

Climbing walls using purple holds and blue holds (or red / black etc etc) on the same panels.

Tiny warning lights that show as green or amber. I can't tell the sodding difference!

All pretty minor in the grand scheme of things though - at least I can still see!

Si

@Scc999 what sort of toilets do you need to climb out of?

Friend of ours was on the radio the other day after complaining about a UEFA game:

https://twitter.com/Mariesthename/status/511964451449630721/photo/1
[img] ?oh=56d4408a1d1c27e50f3bbcb19814c560&oe=54841105[/img]
The story got picked up by The Sun.

The BBC coverage of the referendum results were also daft colours:
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=716160065106122&id=164295340292600

Being a colour blind designer means my life is based around pantone numbers and cmyk values.

Skiing is more exciting though

When I worked as a photographer two of my colleagues in our section were colour blind. One ran the video section the other was my boss. He still felt he could offer useful "advice" on the quality of our colour printing.
As we dealt with explosives most of the time I would suggest bomb disposal might be an area to steer clear of. 🙂

I can't see the numbers in those dot pictures. Can't say this has ever been a problem in my life - doesn't seem to affect everyday vision at all, but then how would I know? Don't think this is full monty colour blindness - described as a colour defect when I was tested at school.

[img] [/img]

Apparently there's a number here.

I'm colour blind with loads of colours - reds, greens, light yellow and light green, purples and blues etc.

The only time its ever really affected me is the time I applied for a signalling apprenticeship on the railways!

As Scc999 said, I also find climbing walls a right pain to follow some colour routes (blue/purple, orange/red/yellow, green brown) especially if the holds are older or chalk covered. I couldn't tell the difference between the green and brown pencils in the school pencil sets and had an art teacher acuse me of taking the piss for not following the colouring guide at one point. Apparently I'm not allowed to join the airforce or police either (don't think they'd take a 45 yo teacher anyway). I has been a source or general hilarity for my wife and children at times also, such as when i bought a black tie for a funeral and came home wearing a dark green tie.

I'm colour blind with all of the above too. Often get asked what colour is the sky/grass etc. Then get accused of being a fibber as I know lol.

Only real thing I struggle with is buying clothes, often ask one of the sales assistants the colour of something I'm buying just in case it's something garish (again). Really wanted to join the Police but obviously couldn't.

Oh and some wiring, I'm ok with 3 phase as it's generally numbered but it can be a tad confusing on some of the panel work!

Oh and red/green ****ing chargers when something is charged/charging. Why not make them so they flash/solid light.

I once sent an email to Exposure lights pointing this out but they ignored me. I have to get one of the kids to tell me when something is charged.

I got my Dad the below image on his work mug (he's colourblind)

[img] [/img]

He knew what it said, but took great delight in telling everyone I'd told him it said 'world's best Dad'

Apparently the RAF felt it best that I didn't fly one of their expensive air based toys....I have no idea what it says on that image above.

Best way I've found to describe to those with normal colour vision is they can't tell the difference between a dark red car and a dark green car in a badly lit car park at night. The diffence for me is I start to not be able to tell them apart at say dusk.

One gf was convinced she could teach me.

In the great scheme of things there are far worse issues to have and is mostly been a source of amusement.

So surely there are technological solutions to this?

After our friend was complaining about her son not being able to watch the football match (solid red strip versus solid green strip, near identical except colour) I was thinking surely what you need is a little set-top box that accepts an HDMI signal, replaces all the green with purple for example (or applies the [url= http://www.daltonize.org/ ]Daltonize[/url] algorithm) and outputs an HDMI signal.

Not ideal, but would certainly make the football watchable.

Longer term I suppose this could be done on-the-fly in Google Glass instead.

This site helps explain to non colourblind people precisely what the world looks like to us.

[url= http://www.colourblindawareness.org/ ]http://www.colourblindawareness.org/[/url]

I'm Protanopic, showed my mum a few months ago, she was staggered by the difference - there are pages to compare various images - she was very upset at what I had had to struggle with, but as I have never not been coloublind it's not an issue for me.

However, it is a real mind**** when you start to look at the jobs that rely on colour vision. Not only that, not having someone to tell you your blue cords are purple and you look like Robin Hood in all green when you had no idea, is a bit of a pisser too.

The only time its ever really affected me is the time I applied for a signalling apprenticeship on the railways!

Interesting, my colour blindness is very bad, however I'm a licensed signalling principle design engineer...

Worst things I find are people who say 'yes, I think I'm a bit colour blind too' and choosing bananas.

rogerthecat - thanks for that link! I've spent the last 13yrs trying to tell my wife it's probably a bit like turning the colour down on your TV

I'm Red/Green/Blue, which makes clothing choices and toilet door selection the most exciting options..... And not careering through red lights on junctions like some people think.

After our friend was complaining about her son not being able to watch the football match (solid red strip versus solid green strip, near identical except colour) I was thinking surely what you need is a little set-top box that accepts an HDMI signal, replaces all the green with purple for example (or applies the Daltonize algorithm) and outputs an HDMI signal.

I struggled a lot when I used to try and play Call of Duty/football etc online as I couldn't tell between different team players. There is a colour blind setting on Call of Duty but it didn't make any difference for me.

There is also the [url= https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/idaltonizer/id515957040?mt=8 ]iDaltonizer app for iOS devices[/url] that can shift colours to simulate colour blindness from a live image, and also shift them to help the colour-blind see the differences they miss.

[img] [/img]

it is aproblem for me as the only jobs I've ever wanted to do I couldn't. Failed medicals for RAF (flying) Met Police and London Fire Brigade. Although interestingly lots of police forces have now removed colour site rules......

I also got a right bollocking form a primary school teacher for colouring the sky in purple rather than blue.

I struggled a lot when I used to try and play Call of Duty/football etc online as I couldn't tell between different team players.

Yeah she mentioned her sons difficulty with computer games too - but I [i]think[/i] the same thing could work - a set top box that tweaks the video signal to enhance the hues/contrasts you need.

If it was done properly it could be configured to your own particular correction and left inline so it could be turned on and off depending on who was using the TV/PC/Console.

Fascinating thread, thanks.

One thing I never understood, when people say they're (for example) red / green colourblind, I've heard it described as though both colours appear as a shade of mucky grey. Why aren't they then red / green / mucky grey colour blind?

Think I might spend a bit of time on that awareness site over lunch, see if I can understand it a bit better.

And, Graham, that's a genius idea. Get on Dragon's Den.

You see, I'm now wondering whether bluearsedfly's username is actually correct...... 😕

Depends on what I've eaten for tea the previous evening!

Amusingly my friend's colourblind son is also a ginger.

I'm reminded of the Stevie Wonder joke...

I always describe it as follows:

I still seee colours, and I reckon I still see them much the same as everone else, but probably just 'turned down' a bit. This then means that when I am faced with loads of different shades of colours in close proximity, I may struggle to seperatly distinguish them. I still see them, but cannot necessarily label them. This is all speculation though as I have never looked through anyone elses eyes.

And, by the way, you probably dont whisper in a quiet voice to ask a deaf person if they can hear you, or ask a person in a wheelchair if they can walk just to test them, so probably best not to ask a colour blind person what colour jumper they are wearing (obvioulsy not suggesting it is as serious a disability but you get the point)

My dad is colourblind and I used to love playing snooker against him as it was always good for a few foul points if I refused to assist him on browns, greens and reds!

I've come home with skimmed rather than semi skimmed milk on more than one occassion.

Sobriety, could you please let the rest of us in your mug joke

@franksinatra - yup same - always wanted to follow my old man as a pilot in the RAF, that was a definite no, then fire brigade - no, police - no, army - only admin (whoopee).

Then you get into areas where colourblindness has an effect on you being able to do the job properly - it's huge - railways, electronics, all sorts of jobs.

Did you get the pencil crayon treatment all through school? As soon as someone finds out you are colourblind, out come the crayons "What colour is this?...."

@cougar - it's impossible to describe as we have never seen the world as you see it, we have no perception of how the coloured seeing person sees the colours.

That website is the best thing I have ever seen as a way of trying to show the effect.

Colour blindness has degrees - I am slightly deficient (anomalous trichromacy). So I see colour but it just isn't as distinguished as for someone with perfect colour vision – but I can still see the difference between a red pencil and a green one.

Some severe colour bind people literally see the world in black, white and shades of grey.

@GrahamS - maybe me being thick but how, if I am already colourblind, can colour shifting and image show me colours that I cannot see anyway. It's all about the physical make up on my eyes so if they are unable to detect the colour I can't see how this may help - off to download the app anyhoo. I'll report back.

TELL US WHAT THE MUG SAYS!!

I'm not badly colour blind (no problems with chargers etc) but so far as I can see it's just a load of dots 🙁

Never mind at school I still get the "what colour is this" whenever I mention it. Pencils and crayons with the colour written on them were great.
I've not done the milk thing like franksinatra but do have to check the normal/garden waste bins by checking the text if it's not bright daylight.

TELL US WHAT THE MUG SAYS!!

World's best Dad, obviously 😉

@GrahamS - maybe me being thick but how, if I am already colourblind, can colour shifting and image show me colours that I cannot see anyway.

As I understand it (and I am a layperson and not colourblind myself so this may be bollocks), most colourblindness involves not being able to differentiate certain hues (i.e. red and green) as one of the three cone types in the eye don't work or the "balance" is a bit out.

So (again speaking as a layperson and happy to be corrected) I was thinking that it would be relatively simple to processing an image to swap certain colour hues out for ones you can distinguish.

e.g. on the football one, if you can't distinguish between the red and green strips then why not simply swap all the red and green in the image for yellow and blue?

(Having read up a bit it sounds like there are more sophisticated approaches to it - called Daltonize - but I think it is basically the same principle).

Colour site tests were a form of humiliation at school, the next three kids would wait in the same room so that they saw you fail to see any of the numbers. Then, at the last stage they would chuck in a false positive so you would feel dead good spotting the number only to be told it was a number that only colour blind people could see. 🙁

Friend of ours was on the radio the other day after complaining about a UEFA game:

sobriety - Member

TELL US WHAT THE MUG SAYS!!

World's best Dad, obviously

Stop teasing

These may be useful to people who want to figure out what the mug says:

Chrome Daltonize:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/efeladnkafmoofnbagdbfaieabmejfcf

Daltonize Bookmarklets:
http://daltonize.appspot.com/

My wife just told me what the mug says... Tut 😀

I watched [url= http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color?language=en ]this ted talk[/url] by a guy who is totally colour blind and invented a doo-dad so he could hear different colours by converting the colour to an audible frequency. He now has a wider range of colour vision than a human can see.

I did trial the contact lens that was around 10 ish years ago. Was rubbish, just made me feel a little sick and reduced my ability do distinguish certain colours!

These may be useful to people who want to figure out what the mug says:

Chrome Daltonize:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/efeladnkafmoofnbagdbfaieabmejfcf

Daltonize Bookmarklets:
http://daltonize.appspot.com/

Can see the 71 (?) on the previous page, but still can't see what the mug says.

The 21 on the previous page is a 74 (or at least it is to me) so I suspect if you see 21 it isn't tweaking all the colour hues you need.

The OP highlighted 2 of the things that confuse me - toilet locks and the underground map. For charges I have to unplug then replug in device so I can see what colour it is.
Anything thing with that's not a larger block of colour can confuse me. Having said that it doesn't cause me any real issues in life and I've worked in a few design agencies!

In the past...
Couldnt be a pilot.
Buggered up a cup final as i couldnt tell my team and the opposition apart.

Nowadays..

Apparently ill-matched clothes.
Some maps.

The worst problem is mentioning you are colour blind and people holding things up and saying "What colour is this?"

Whilst we're on the subject, can any of our normal visioned viewers advise me which Madison Addicts would look betterer, the green or brown?

Always buy black everything so I know it isn't something daft and end up looking like the milk tray man.

Frame colour is light blue btw if it helps?

Thanks

I've had to endure the life time of "what colour is this?"

The website link on the first page was "eye opening". The picture with 4 to compare next to it. Pictures 2 & 3 look the same as "normal" to me. I'm on a small screen ATM so I'll try it on a large screen when I get home. The 4th is distinctly different. Blue-ish grey grass.

Normal electrical cabling is fine for me, electronics take lots of time and a multimeter.

Being colourblind might explain my gopping coloured bikes!

toilet locks and the underground map

Toilet locks are fitted upside-down often enough for me not to be able to rely on the red/green coloured window, and I'm not colour blind.

well that was really worth 5 minutes of my day...

When I was younger I once convinced a friend I met camping that I could only see in black and white, and that my whole life was like a Charlie Chaplin film.

Matching ties for me, given that blue and purple ARE THE SAME COLOUR

probably best not to ask a colour blind person what colour jumper they are wearing

"Wow, in forty years you're the first person ever to think of that joke."

@cougar - it's impossible to describe as we have never seen the world as you see it, we have no perception of how the coloured seeing person sees the colours.

Yeah, that makes sense. Wondering how you'd explain colour to a blind person or the sense of smell to someone with congenital Anosmia is the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night.

The website link on the first page was "eye opening". The picture with 4 to compare next to it. Pictures 2 & 3 look the same as "normal" to me.

That's what I was getting at earlier. That's really interesting, thanks.

For those who still care, the mug says '**** the color blind'

bloody yanks and their spellings.

Ah! If it was missing a 'u' then my grammar & spelling disorder would have kicked in & prevented me from seeing it in an attempt to stop the impending stroke I would suffer as I exploded in righteous indignation at the screen.

I can't berate people for their colour sense in fashion, so I overcompensate in the written form. 😀

Does it really? I couldn't read it, having tried for a while. I have no problems whatsoever differentiating between red/green, maybe I'm just shit at those tests 😕

I couldn't read but could sort of make it out by reducing the size right down.

Unfortunately that one got broken earlier this year. He's getting this one on a new mug for christmas*

[img] [/img]

*Yes, I know it's juvenile, but that's just how I roll.

Fail, I can see that and I'm colour blind. Or is it one of those that only colour blind people can see?

Blimey, what a lot of us there are on here. I'm pretty comprehensively colourblind, but managed to get a design degree by being sneaky about it and labelling my pens. The most embarrassing colours that I get confused are some greys and pinks - but blues and purples, greens and browns, yellows and greens, purples and pinks etc etc etc all cause me difficulties. I first found out when I got told off at infant school for drawing a green kangaroo.

I have a tie which I really like, it's a lovely shade of deep green, like the north sea. To me anyway. I'm told it's actually a sort of manky brick red with grey bits. Serious stuff.

Blimey, what a lot of us there are on here.

How timely...
I'm supposed to be testing a new app our company is developing and didn't realize they'd used red and green icons to signify different things!

I'm pretty comprehensively colour blind and the most significant problems I have are:
(1) understanding the legend on a lot of maps (which really pisses me off as a cannot easily differentiate trails from contour lines, for instance!)
(2) some poor choice in clothing. Generally, I'll stick to conservative colour choices and/or look for brands which type out the colour on the label
(3) Trying to pick out riders or teams in the pro-peleton on TV whilst watching the TdF

My girlfriend is now used to my constant "What colour is this...?" questioning so she's probably more pissed off than me

<Off to investigate some of the links in this thread>

Oh, one of my brother's is also colour blind and got thru art college by using glasses with red tinted lenses which helped differentiate certain colours but I don't think he's as blind as me...

Just had a small shout at the parking ticket machine in the Waitrose car park in Buxton - green button for print ticket, red to reject coins, kerchink kerchink as the 20p pieces came back to me - not life ending but another frustration as they had put a tick and a cross on the instructions but not the buttons.

Won't most clothes places give you advice? I sometimes ask shop assistants and my colour perception is fine 🙂

Lots of this sounds so familiar, have to agree blue and purple are exactly the same colour to me. Pink, grey, green and often blues/purples all get mixed up.

I can sometimes tell primary red and green apart as I can pick out the brighter red but throw a few different shades in along with brown a la trailer lighting wiring and I have no chance.

I'm also banned from dressing the kids unless their 'outfits' have been pre passed by the wife or my eldest.

I've no idea what the mug says.

I trained as an electronic engineer. At one point I had to learn how to cable 300 pair wire cables into telephone exchange blocks. The wires in the cable are distinguished by ever so slightly different combinations of colours. I could work quite happily with the wires and passed the exam in that discipline but I'm useless with those colour blind books. The only one I can see is the trick one the nasty bastards put in there to catch colour blind people out.

And I've just got my wife to tell me what the mug says. lol.

I got engaged this summer ("WOOHOO!!!") and we're in the midst of planning our wedding. My fiancee is now getting her knickers in a twist about colour schemes for the wedding, desperately trying to work out a colour scheme that I looks nice, has a bit of variety and is vibrant enough for me to see.

As for problems, I got into quite a lot of trouble a few years ago when my missus asked if I liked her new cardigan. I replied, yeah, grey was ind of neutral colour to go with anything. "Grey? You think this is grey?" She then got out all of her "grey clothes" to check. Turns out, her favourite colour was baby pink. I had no idea.

Pastel colours are my nemesis.

For any of you who bought chipie clothes in Manchester that were a bit out their, yes I was the colour blind buyer.

Yet another colour blind STW member here - Soon it will be added to the Woodburner/Bought an inbred/engineer/drive a VW group car list.

Chargers, loo indicators (I have to peer closely to look to see if the lock is engaged - well that's what I told the magistrate)and cooking red meat is a challenge.

Instead of red/green why not a blue/yellow change? Much easier to see.

Oh yeah, red meat. It starts really red when raw but I can watch it turn grey before my eyes. Thankfully it doesn't have to be cooked that thoroughly otherwise I would have died of food poisoning years ago!

Also colour blind, red green. To be honest it's only really affected me knowingly in a handful of situations. I first found out when my older brother went to look around senior school and the biology labs had the test laid and and we all realised I couldn't do them and therefore was colour blind. Hard to take as I wanted to be a pilot at the time, apparently the primary school knew all along probably why I had so many eye tests. The next time it mattered I was 6 month into a electronic engineer apprenticeship and I failed the ishihara tests, they then gave me a ball of mixed up wires and asked me to pick out green, red, blue brown etc which I believe I passed but they said I had to move from electronics to software apprenticeship. The only other time(s) is sometimes with clothes I get brown/green mixed up and when I used to play video games if it was fifa I struggle being the player with the red circle player highlighter and in first person shooters where the cross hairs where red. I also struggle with the red/green small on off led(s). All of the above infuriate me that there aren't colour blind settings especially s/w ones as in games.

Interesting hearing other peoples experiences as I've never come across anyone else admitting to being colour blind. So good to hear that others get the inane questions about what colour is this/that. I hadn't really thought about how crass the question was though maybe I should of been offended instead of irked at the ignorance of the question.

So for the fellow hue challenged folk it's evolution you know so we are superior 😉

Color blindness is usually classified as a mild disability, however there are occasional circumstances where it can give an advantage. Some studies conclude that color blind people are better at penetrating certain color camouflages. Such findings may give an evolutionary reason for the high prevalence of red–green color blindness.[4] There is also a study suggesting that people with some types of color blindness can distinguish colors that people with normal color vision are not able to distinguish.[5]

But I don't know what that bloody mug says.....

Oh yeah, does anyone else struggle to see red laser pointers? I can spot them if they are still, but move them around like when being used in a presentation and I'm lost. What's more of an issue is when they are used as red dot laser sights on rifles...

Ok I'll try to sum up colour vision deficiency in as few words as I can. It effects about 1:7 men and 1:1000 women.
Generally its classified as 'red', 'green' or 'blue' deficient relating to the peak light wavelength sensitivity of the cone cells of the retina.

The more severe deficiencies are Dichromats, when one 'colour' is totally missing, Deuteanope (green missing), Protanope ( Red missing) And Tritanope (blue missing). For these people you perceive colour using a mix of the remaining 2 which skews your colour perception & seeing some colours as grey and mixing up colour saturated/pastel shades etc.

Anomalous trichromats have all three types of cone cells but one will be working at a reduced level to theother three, these people may have close to normal colour vision or reduced to almost a dichromat level.

The numbes in all the dots is a test called the Ishihara test, it only checks for red or green defeciencies, its possible to cheat this test with coloured filters to move your deficiency to a part of the spectrum not covered by the test.

Lumination plays abig part in passing or failing colour vision tests as it can again alter the perception of colour.

The rarest and most unlucky folks are Monochromats who have no colour vision perception at all and perceive the world in greyscale.

Bit rambling but hope that helps abit

Colourblind here too. Never really bothered me but I was told that I couldn't be a photographer by my careers teacher. I became one just to spite her years later.

The cow.

A school friend struggled with green and brown and asked me which was which. So he ended up with some trees with green trunks and brown leaves.

I was only 6, I would never do it now......