(Optional) Designing for the color impaired

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Cartography with ArcGIS

Lesson 20 overview

Human eyes
Color deficiencies Colors for the visually impaired
What Other

colors to avoid and what to use useful symbol characteristics

Exercise B

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-2

Human eyes can have deficiencies

Color vision genes are on the X chromosome

Females Males

have X-X chromosomes pairing

have X-Y, therefore men are more likely to be color deficient than women

Colors

for the color blind:

http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/aboutCB.html

Population that has some form of color blindness

8% of men of women deficient vision:

0.4%

Color

http://www.visibone.com/colorblind/

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-3

Deficiency in which colors?

Most deficiency is with either green or red

Blue/yellow deficiency is very rare Big misconception
Color-blind Extremely

people would see black and white or only gray tones

rare total color blindness

Can be color deficient to some degree Normal eye Red cone cells defective Green cone cells defective Blue cone cells defective

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-4

What is difficult to distinguish?

Colors
Red Dark red symbols Orange Yellow Yellow-green Green Magenta symbols Thin lines on Black

Symbols

Dark blue

Text

Dark red characters in black text

This is an important lesson for you
Border colors Avoid yellow to green colors
Green Bluish green

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-5

Colors that are easier to identify

Simulated green/red deficiency Simulated blue deficiency

Origin colors Black Orange

R
0

G
0

B
0 0 66

230 159 240 228

Sky blue
Bluish green Yellow Blue Vermilion Reddish purple

86 180 233
0 114 178 0 158 115 213 94 0 204 121 167

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-6

Which colors to avoid

Red
Avoid Use

Avoid

Use

pure red: RGB (255, 0, 0)

vermilion: RGB (213, 94, 0) to orange: RGB (230, 195, 0)

Change

Green
Avoid

pure green: RGB (0, 255, 0)

Too easily confused with red or brown

Use

bluish green: RGB (0, 158, 115)

Light green and yellow appear the same

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20-7

Alternatives for point features

Keep the number of colors to a minimum

Use a combination of different shapes and few vivid colors

Avoid

Use

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20-8

Alternatives for linear features

Use thicker lines

Vary shape of line instead of color

Avoid a separate key: Label directly near lines

Existing Temporary Planned Existing Temporary Planned

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20-9

Alternatives for areal features

Use vivid colors with different levels of brightness

Use textural shades

Avoid separate keys: Label within polygons

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20-10

Useful URLs

Color-blind simulation

Vischeck
http://vischeck.com/

ColorBrewer: Web tool for selecting map colors

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/c/a/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer_learnMore.html http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer_intro.html

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-11

Exercise 20 overview

Using the ColorBrewer application

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Cartography with ArcGIS

20-12