Living with Color Blindness — Traffic Lights, Cooking, Clothes, Maps, Phone Settings
Tips for judging by position, brightness, shape, and temperature instead of color; color filter settings on iPhone, Android, Windows, and Mac; and how to get support at school and work.
Most people with color vision deficiency get through daily life without major trouble. But mistakes come easily with “information shown only by color,” so it helps to know the cues you can use instead.
Traffic signals
- Read traffic lights by which light is on, not by color. Arrangements vary by country, so learn the order where you travel (on vertical signals, red is usually at the top).
- Protans (red-deficient) may see red lights and brake lights as dim and notice them late from a distance. Leave plenty of following distance.
- Tell similar colors like flashing yellow and amber apart by blink pattern and position.
Cooking and food
- Meat doneness is hard to judge by color. A food thermometer is the most reliable tool. The USDA's recommended minimum internal temperatures are 74°C (165°F) for poultry such as chicken and duck, 71°C (160°F) for ground meat, and 63°C (145°F, with a 3-minute rest) for whole cuts of beef and pork.
- Check fruit ripeness by firmness, smell, and the condition of the stem.
- For mold or spoilage, texture and smell are more reliable cues than color.
Clothes and belongings
- When buying new clothes, ask for the color name in the store and mark it on the tag or hanger to cut down on mismatches.
- Dark colors like black, navy, dark green, and brown are easy to mix up, so sort your drawers by color.
- Apps that read out color names through your phone's camera can also help (accuracy varies with lighting).
Maps, charts, and games
- For transit maps and charts, look at the legend's order, shapes, and direct labels as well. Zooming in makes the colors of thin lines easier to see.
- Many games and apps have a “colorblind mode.” Look under Accessibility in the settings menu.
- If you're the one making the material, see the colorblind-friendly palettes guide.
Color filter settings on your devices
Operating systems include built-in color correction for color vision deficiency. It won't restore “normal” color, but it widens the gap between the color pairs you tend to confuse.
| Device | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| iPhone, iPad | Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters |
| Android | Settings → Accessibility → Color correction (names vary slightly by manufacturer) |
| Windows 11 | Settings → Accessibility → Color filters |
| macOS | System Settings → Accessibility → Display → Color Filters |
When you take a color vision check, turn these filters off. If they're on, you'll be tested on filtered colors.
School and work
- If your child has a color vision deficiency, let their teacher know. They may struggle with colored chalk or instructions given only by color name (“Pick the red one”).
- If your job involves color-coded documents, wiring, or signage, asking for labels or patterns to be added is a reasonable accommodation.
- For color vision requirements related to careers, see the careers guide.
For family and friends
If you want to see the world the way a person with color vision deficiency does, put a photo into the simulator. It makes it much easier to understand why they ask, “What color is this?”