Color-Consciousness+is+Needed+in+Web-Design

Individuals with color-blindness have difficulty viewing certain websites, due to the colors chosen by its website creator. Color-blindness makes //perceiving// the difference between certain colors difficult. Because there are many different types of color-blindness, the color combinations that can not be perceived by these individuals vary. However, the most common color combination that cannot be distinguished amongst color-blind individuals is a red-green combination.

In the red-green color-blindness deficiency, hues of red appear to be more beige and somewhat darker than they actually are. Greens appear to look similar to the reds, so differentiation between the colors becomes difficult.

In the population, about 7% of all males have some type of color deficiency, and 0.4% of all females are color-blind. This makes up over 10 million Americans. This makes up a significant portion of the population which needs to be considered, when designing web pages. To create pages that are easily assessable for individuals with color-blindness, it is unnecessary to make the entire page back, gray, and white. However, the designer should be sure that colors are not the only method of conveying important information. For example, the subway routes in New York City are assigned colors. An individual with colorblindness would not be able to navigate the routes, if they were not also assigned a number. While the colors make the map easily interpreted by non-color-blind individuals, accessing the public transit system would be near-impossible for a color-blind individual, without the use of additional train numbers.

One popular form of making text stand out is to highlight it in red. Website designers should also be conscious of this, and perhaps also underline the word for color-blind individuals. With the popular rise of many Web 2.0 tools, anyone can now become a designer for a website, blog, wiki, etc. It is important that all are aware of the limitations of some when the interpreting information that is only presented in colors. Alternative methods of labeling are also needed, when introducing information.

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