Color Craft & Counterpoint: A Designer’s Life with Color Vision Deficiency is a detailed article about the life of a color blind person. I’m also color blind (red/green) and the block below about traffic lights spoke to me. I have problems when lights are blinking red or yellow late at night.
Think for a moment about ways that color is used to convey information in the world around you. One thing that comes to my mind would be traffic lights. Color is used to let drivers know how they should proceed. No additional information is provided in case a driver is color blind. Traffic lights also use two of the colors most commonly associated with color blindness: red and green. Thankfully, most traffic lights have a common form factor. The top light is red, the middle light is yellow, and the bottom light is green. Even if I couldn’t tell the color, as long as I can tell which light is lit, then I’m able to get the necessary information.