Color Blind Accessible Tech: Devices and Settings That Help

Color vision deficiency — commonly called color blindness — makes it difficult or impossible to distinguish certain colors. The most common type, red-green color blindness, affects about 1 in 12 men. While it cannot be cured, technology offers increasingly effective workarounds.

Operating System Color Filters

Every major operating system now includes color filters designed for color vision deficiency. Windows (Settings > Accessibility > Color Filters) offers protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia filters that shift the color palette to increase contrast between colors you struggle to distinguish. macOS offers similar filters in System Settings > Accessibility > Display.

iOS and Android both have color filter settings and, importantly, also offer per-app color adjustments. On iPhone, you can triple-click the home or side button to toggle color filters instantly — useful when switching between apps that are more or less color-dependent.

Color Identification Apps

Color identification apps use your phone camera to tell you what color you are looking at. Color Blind Pal, Seeing AI (Microsoft), and Google Lookout can identify colors in real-time, name specific shades, and even simulate how the world looks to people with different types of color vision.

The EnChroma glasses use spectral filtering to enhance color separation for some types of red-green color blindness. They do not work for everyone, and results vary, but many users report a noticeably expanded color experience, especially outdoors.

Display Settings That Help

Beyond color filters, several display adjustments help color blind users. Increasing color saturation makes differences more pronounced. Using dark mode can improve contrast between colored elements on screen. Some monitors offer built-in color blindness modes — the BenQ EW2780U includes Color Weakness settings specifically for this purpose.

For web browsing, browser extensions like Colorblind Web Page Filter and NoCoffee Vision Simulator help by adding patterns, labels, or adjusted colors to web content that relies on color alone to convey information.

Gaming Accessibility

Many modern games include color blind modes that change the color of important UI elements, add symbols alongside colors, and use patterns in addition to colors for status indicators. Fortnite, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and most major titles offer deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia settings. Always check game accessibility settings before assuming you must play with default colors.

For hardware, the Xbox Elite Controller allows you to remap buttons, which is helpful when color-based button prompts (green A, red B) are confusing.

Designing for Color Blindness

If you create content — presentations, charts, websites — use colorblind-safe palettes. Tools like ColorBrewer and Viz Palette generate color schemes that work for all types of color vision. Always supplement color with labels, patterns, or icons. Never convey meaning through color alone.

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