Patterns vs colors: which helps colorblind users more?

I used to think adding texture patterns to graphs was overkill until I showed a dashboard to my colorblind coworker Dave. He couldn't tell the red line from the green one at all, but the dotted vs dashed lines worked perfectly for him. Now I'm wondering if we should prioritize patterns over color choices in every design. Has anyone else switched from color-only to pattern-based systems and seen better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix84518d ago

Patterns solve a problem that goes way beyond colorblindness, like how traffic lights still use position alongside color so nobody has to guess. Real life already figured this out with tire treads versus road paint, one works when your eyes fail you and the other doesn't. It's just smart design to give people more than one way to tell things apart, same reason keys have different shapes on keyboards.

eric35918d ago

Oh man, that keyboard key shape analogy is actually really good, never thought of it that way. But here's what I'm wondering - do you think adding patterns to things like app icons or websites would actually make them more usable for everyone, or would it just clutter things up and make them harder to read? Like I get the logic, but there's gotta be a point where adding too many visual cues just creates noise instead of helping.