Tools for checking visualization colors for color blinds

Perception Color
#1

Hello everybody

I have a question about color choice for people with color deficiencies. I would be interested in a few points but unfortunately I have not yet found a satisfactory answer. First, I am looking for a suitable tool to determine how exactly a color blind person (or someone with color deficiencies) perceives my visualization. As it is well known, there are different types of color vision deficiency, but also different intensity levels of the affected person. So I’m looking for both a tool that shows me how a person with a e.g. green visual impairment sees the visualization, but at the same time it would be interesting to see how the colors (or the perception) behave with different, simultaneously occurring visual deficiencies. I know people who have multiple color deficiencies. Since the poor eyesight only affects the hue, but not the color saturation or brightness, I have not really found anything so far. Are there existing tools or conversion tables for RGB or CMYK colors etc. for this?

#2

There are a few color-blindness simulators online, such as

https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

https://www.toptal.com/designers/colorfilter/

Are these what you are looking for?

#3

Since most people who are color deficient are not completely “color-blind” the optimal solution for everyone will be quite different. The tools provide a simulation of what the vis will look like, but getting this right is very tricky because it depends on the shape of the cone filter functions, how the shape changes at different light levels, as well as individual differences. Also, the rendering of the colors will depend on the particular display, especially the computations are done in a color space derived from RGB, which uses the display’s primaries to define the gamut of producible colors.

The author of this questions seems to be interested in seeing a simulation of what a color impaired person sees. If the ultimate goal is to create a vis whose information is readable, my advice is always to “get it right in black and white.” With very few exceptions, color deficient people still have perfect luminance contrast judgments and all the information in the black and white view is available to them. In casual viewing, I see that some of the tools designed to create color-safe versions for people with color impairment seem to change the luminance characteristics and therefore ends up creating a less useful representation. This would be an interesting aspect to pursue as a research topic.

Another place to look for supporting research is in imaging. Here, the topic is called “Daltonization (Dalton was color-blind,)” and focuses on the transformation of images so that people with different anomalies can appreciate them.

For future research, one area to explore is whether an overall transformation is the best way to go.
What if the transformation were adapted to where the important information is?

#4

As noted by Min Chen: Coblis is a strong tool for testing you image against various types of color deficiencies: https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

#5

I agree with Bernice’s comments in general. There are also a variety of tools to test “conventional” color difference settings like ColorOracle or ColorBlindly. There are also programmatic versions available like Peacock. Some design tools also support varying degrees of insight into how “safe” a color scheme is likely to be (e.g., ColorBrewer or VizPalette).

If you’re looking to tailor and/or simulate individual differences, I would take a peek at the work that’s been done by David Flatla and colleagues. I couldn’t find any of the tools online, but you may be able to adapt the methods or ping David directly if those look like what you need. Good luck!

#6

I really like Color Oracle for this, it’s a tiny executable that works for most operating systems, sits in your system tray and simulates three most common color deficiencies and gray scale https://colororacle.org/