My app struggle solved by icons, not color swaps

I've been colorblind my whole life, and I'm tired of designers who think swapping red for blue fixes everything. Last week, I was using a new app that had all these color-coded buttons, and I couldn't tell what did what. But then I noticed they also had tiny icons on each button, and suddenly it all clicked. This showed me that adding simple shapes or patterns is way more effective than obsessing over color palettes. I see so many guides telling you to avoid certain color combinations, but that's just limiting creativity. In my work, I always push for extra visual cues beyond color, and it never fails. People might say it clutters the design, but I argue that clarity is king. If a design relies solely on color, it's already broken for millions of us.

3 comments

3 Comments

spencerr821mo ago

Stared at confusing color coded graphs forever myself

kim.hannah1mo ago

Oh man, I feel this! I got lost in a chart once until I spotted the text labels, kind of like your graph issue, @spencerr82.

susanr1527d ago

What if the labels are the problem, @spencerr82? Sometimes you just need to look at the colors.