Graphic Design for the Color-vision Impaired

Project in collaboration with Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso, The Washington Post.

Goals

Software to simulate color impaired vision. Development of design guidelines for the universal barrier-free color design of maps and information graphics.

Results

Color Oracle, a free software for the simulation of color impaired vision, was developed using C, Carbon and Cocoa on Mac OS X, and Java 6 for Windows and Linux.
Design guidelines for the barrier-free color design of maps and information graphics were identified.

Color Oracle simulating color-impaired vision for a color wheel.


colorvision
Barrier-free design of line symbols.


Publications

Jenny, B. and Kelso, N. V. (2007). Designing maps for the colour-vision impaired. Bulletin of the Society of Cartographers SoC, 41, p. 9-12. PDF.

Jenny, B. and Kelso, N. V. (2007). Color design for the color vision impaired. Cartographic Perspectives, 58, p. 61-67. High resolution PDF (20.3 MB) | Low resolution PDF (706 KB).

Website

Color Oracle (2006) colororacle.cartography.ch
Color Oracle is a software application for the simulation of color-blind vision.
Authors: Bernhard Jenny, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso (The Washington Post)