Shelled out $150 on a colorblind simulation app and it changed my whole process

I bought the Chromatic Vision Simulator Pro app last month after struggling to get feedback from my colorblind coworker. It showed me how my dashboard designs actually look to someone with deuteranopia. The red and green outlines I was using just blended into nothing. I spent three days reworking a project based on what the app showed me. Has anyone else tried paid simulation tools over the free ones and found them worth the money?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_aaron3d ago

@keith_henderson nailed it with that "blind spots" comment. I spent an embarrassing amount of time once designing a green-on-red status indicator system that my own boss couldn't read. He'd just nod and say "looks good" until I finally asked why he kept squinting. Turns out he's colorblind too, just never mentioned it. Paid sim tools feel like cheating at first but they're really just saving you from your own assumptions.

keith_henderson4d ago

The whole "I spent three days reworking a project" part hit close to home. It's wild how much time we waste designing for the wrong audience. I see this everywhere now, not just in design. People build stuff based on how they see the world and completely miss how others experience it. That app sounds like a shortcut to catching those blind spots before they cost you a client or a project. Free tools are fine for a quick check, but paying for something that actually shows you the full picture instead of just a rough estimate seems like a no-brainer. It's like those free color pickers vs. paying for a proper palette analyzer, you get what you pay for.