Positive Health Online

Colour blindness affects approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women across the world. This means that there are almost 3 million citizens who are colour blind in the UK. In collaboration with Colour Blind Awareness UK, the leading UK charity for colour blindness, Lenstore set out to show what the three most common forms of colour blindness –protanopia, deuteranopia & tritanopia actually look like. They used a unique software that replicates the unique conditions of colour blindness sufferers. www.lenstore.co.uk/vc/colour-change/

There is also a Q&A with Kathryn Albany-Ward, expert & founder of Colour Blind Awareness UK 

What are the Types of Colour-Blindness Shown?

You can view all of the Protanopia image sliders here and download the images here.

Protanopia is characterised by the absence of the L-cones in the retina, which are responsible for processing long-wave light. The light that stimulates the L-cones is mainly in the red spectrum. Protanopes therefore have difficulty distinguishing between red and green and between blue and green.

You can view all of the Deuteranopia images here and download the images here.

People with deuteranopia lack the so-called M cones, which mainly react to light in the green colour range. It is more difficult for deuteranopes to distinguish green from red and blue. Besides protanopia, this is the most common type of colour blindness.

You can view all of the Tritanopia images here and download the images here.

Tritanopia is characterized by the absence of S/K cones, which are responsible for processing short-wave light. K-cones mainly react to light in the blue colour range. Tritanopes have difficulty differentiating between blue and yellow hues. Green is often confused with blue and purple with black.

Quotes from Kathryn Albany-Ward, CEO of  Colour Blind Awareness UK:

What Difficulties do People with Colour Blindness Face on a Daily Basis?
On a daily basis people with colour blindness may struggle with: Driving, using maps and way-finding information (the London Underground map is impossible to follow), but also understanding any information only provided with colour, such as textbooks and educational resources.

What Measures are in Place to Help People Living with Colour Blindness?
Despite videos of glasses circulating on social media, which claim to solve colour blindness, there is no cure. There is also nothing in place in schools or workplaces on the whole, and society often ignores people with colour blindness, whether they are in the workplace or at leisure.

How can Someone Help a Person with Colour Blindness, in the Workplace or in School?
Never provide information by colour alone. To be inclusive, schools and businesses should ensure any information given in colour is also given in another way such as text labels, symbols and patterns.

Schools and businesses need to realize that school exam results could be improved by providing proper support to students from reception to A Levels, and businesses could gain up to 5% more customers by providing proper labels e.g. clothes retailers and online retailers could attract colour blind customers by providing colour information on labels or as a hover function on websites.