How to test GUI for color blind person?

Question

Is there a way to test if a GUI is usable for color blind person?

I know that it has many degrees and I guess that's why simply doing a screenshot in black & white is not the best way to test the usability of a GUI for a color blind person. What is the best way or best tool to do it?

Answer 1

you can change the color of your screenshots using this website: http://www.vischeck.com/daltonize/

Answer 2

Remember that a colorblind person doesn't necessarily see the world in black and white but rather some colors change their appearance. There are several different kinds of color-blindness out there and each looks different. Here are some images illustrating the different variants. For the most part it's either reddish or greenish tones that are affected, while most of the time blue colors remain what they are.

You can try out how your UI looks to various color-blind persons with this tool for example.\

The Windows User Experience Guidelines also cover color with respect to color blindness.

Answer 3

There are a number of tools listed on this site that provide a filter or a way of looking at your website/application/etc. as if you were colorblind. This is a very simple way to test and does not require you to find every color-blind type individual out there (as there are different levels of color blindness).

Answer 4

Search for color blindness simulation tools on the net. You will find for example

• Sim Daltonism (Mac OS X): http://michelf.com/projects/sim-daltonism/
• Colorblind Web Page Filter (Web): http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
• 15 Tools If You Are (Not) Colorblind: http://www.colblindor.com/2008/12/23/15-tools-color-blindness/

Answer 5

To test a web page for colorblindness accessibility, you can try out:

http://colorfilter.wickline.org/

Answer 6

I just found from Futjusu "Color Doctor" that can display website in 4 modes of color blind: Color Doctor.

Answer 7

Technically, there is really no way in which you could do this other than to use a black and white interface. There are many different types of color blindness and there are varying degrees to each of those types (I happen to have Tritanomaly, which means that I have difficulty with the entire spectrum of Blue). There is a decent Wikipedia article about clorblindness(Color blindness)that describes the differences. There are plenty of websites that offer different ways of designing for the color blind, but in actuality, it is difficult to make something look good to color normal people that would also be visible to color weak/blind people. Go with Black and white and it will look good for everyone (think I-tunes).

Answer 8

There is a cool iPhone app called Simulate that will allow you to take a screen-shot or a photo to see how things look. It also includes sample images that really let you see how things might appear to a color-blind person.