Accessible Colors

We work with a lot of data at Cleo. When we’re not designing new features on our app or fixing bugs, you can find us staring at scores of charts to see if those features are doing what they’re supposed to.

Some charts are easy to read, like this one: 🐶

But some charts are not so easy to read.. 🤯

Especially if, like one of our Tech Leads, you live with color vision deficiency. In fact, you might find this version more legible:

A color palette that looks ‘normal’ to the 93% of us without color vision deficiency (CVD), may look meaningfully different to someone who does live with CVD. 

But how is each color perceived with and without CVD? And how does one color compare with another? Fortunately, we were able to find the answers. Here’s a very informative link where you can get a sense of how each color might look to people with different types of color blindness (and here’s the original science-y article behind it). You can even enter different colors as hex codes to create an accessible palette of your own. 

Here’s an accessible color palette alongside one that’s less accessible. It shows how each color would look without CVD (true) and then how it would look with protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia, which are the three types of color blindness.

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This accessible palette is now the default on all of our charts at Cleo 🎊 A small but meaningful step towards making all our tools and technologies more accessible. 

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Our colorblind teammate still has to shout out each time he’s unable to read a slide due to its unfriendly colors. Through Interacting with him, I realized that we shouldn’t only be mindful of the varying needs of people around us, but intentional about expressing our own unique needs to our friends and colleagues!

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Enjoy this post? Give it a share or send it along to a friend. You never know, it could make a big difference. And of course, if you want to try the best money app in the world for free, just hit this link right here. Big love. Cleo

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