Color+Blindness+and+its+affect+on+Web+use+and+navigation.

After reading the article, “[|How People With Disabilities Use The Web]” which discussed some of the disabilities that can make Web 2.0 tools difficult to use, I realized that Colorblindness is considered a disability. I had never really thought about it as a disability, since my brother had grown up being colorblind. I did not see it as a hindrance to his every day life.

There are different kinds of color blindness; my brother is “red/green” color blind, the most common form of colorblindness. This means that the colors red and green look the same to him-a sort of brown color. A smaller group of people suffer from blue/orange colorblindness where they can’t distinguish between those two colors.

The article sparked my interest in this topic and I asked my brother how his colorblindness affects his use of the Internet. His response was, “Not much.” He stated that the most frustrating problem he experiences is on websites that used a variety of colors and that it was often difficult to find links on WebPages because they are represented with a color change. His solution to this issue is to roll the mouse over the page until the arrow changes to a hand signaling a link. Another challenge he has faced is playing online games, which are often based on color. Usually games like Tetris or games where you need to match or stack blocks, start out with only a few color but as the levels get harder more and more colors appear making the game more challenging. This is also the case in games like “World of War Craft,” the changes in color definitely challenge a colorblind player. “World of War Craft” does have a colorblind setting but my brother doesn’t notice a difference.

In the article “[|Will Wikiepedia’s New Rules Garner More Trust?]” written by Dennis Carter, he discusses Wikiepedia’s new color-coding program in which new posts will be displayed with a bright orange back ground and the back ground will eventually fade to white the longer the article stays on Wikiepedia unedited-showing its reliability. The most reliable articles will have a white background. This could pose a problem for those that are colorblind, especially blue/orange colorblind. The links on Wikipedia are the color blue, if they are appearing on an orange background, it will be impossible for a blue/orange colorblind individual to navigate the links.

Colorblindness is something for Wikiepedia and other websites to consider in throughout their web design.

__**Update on Colorblindness (2016):**__

The aforementioned article(s) highlighted how colorblindness can cause difficulty in interacting with social media. New technologies have advanced to improve the experiences of people with colorblindness. For example, [|EnChroma] glasses are now available to the public. As stated in [|this article], "people with normal vision see 1 million distinct colors, while those with a red-green deficiency see anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000.[|"]

In my undergraduate class, a student was recently celebrated during his graduation by his classmates who gifted him with EnChroma glasses. His story can be seen in the [|Boston Globe]. Tim Smith was a student in my graduating class who was an animation major -- but also colorblind. Instead of adding vivid colors to his animations, he focused on the movements and shapes. Sometimes, he also relied on his classmates to tell him whether colors looked good together. Red-green colorblindness is hereditary, but Tim did not let that stop him from pursuing his dreams of becoming an animator.

The culmination of this story is heartwarming, as Tim's classmates created a private Facebook group to organize themselves and eventually purchased a pair of glasses to present to him. While colorblindness may be a barrier to experiencing all that technology and social media has to offer, technology can also help people regain that experience and live life in full color. 