A UX researcher told me my dashboard was useless for colorblind users

Turns out using green and red together for status indicators made it impossible for like 8% of people to read. I switched to adding icons like checkmarks and X's alongside the colors and the feedback was way better. Has anyone else dealt with redesigning a whole interface after one round of testing?

2 comments

2 Comments

mitchell.shane7d ago

Well damn, I'll be honest - I used to think colorblind stuff was just people being overly picky. But last year I was helping a buddy wire up a home automation panel and realized I couldn't tell his red and green LEDs apart in dim light. Totally changed my mind. Adding those icons or patterns alongside the colors is the way to go, makes it work for everyone without making things look cluttered.

kevin_murray887d ago

You ever try one of those colorblind tests online just to see? I did after a buddy kept joking about my mismatched clothes and turns out I'm mild deuteranopia or something close to it. What really clicked for me was when I started using color coding in my workshop for tool organization. I added little symbols like a circle for red and a square for green and now even my wife who isn't colorblind prefers it. Makes everything faster when you're half reaching in a drawer without squinting at the labels.