Downloader: Chrometric lets you simulate the effects of color blindness in your web designs

Friday, May 7, 2010

Chrometric lets you simulate the effects of color blindness in your web designs

Filed under: Developer, Utilities, Browsers

Did you know that color blindness is surprisingly common -- if you're male, anyway. You know how men are 'XY' and women are 'XX'? That little 'missing leg' in the male Y chromosome supplies women with redundant genes for eyesight. Yes, men are genetically weaker than women -- cool huh?

Anyway, if you're a Web developer, or merely curious as to how the Web looks to color blind people, check out Chrometric! At the time of writing it simulates nine kinds of color blindness and 'forgotten glasses', but I get the feeling the developer will continue to add different visual defects -- astigmatism perhaps? It's an open-source AIR app too, so it's easy enough to jump in and help development! Maybe you have some rare eye defect that people should be made aware of?

For me, it was interesting to see the world in a different way. I've got color blind friends, but they can't articulate what it's like to be color blind. They've never known what green looks like -- most colour blind people don't even know they are color blind until they are adult!

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