Front end development - Color Blind

IgsTer

In a bit of a crossroads at the moment career wise. I finished up my 2 years higher cert computing course last may. Loved all the web development modules as well as networking modules but wasnt a big fan of the back end programming heavy type stuff. Ive been working for a year now in an unrelated field to my course. So im looking to kick it into gear and actually get a job in the it field. Been looking at two routes go down the networking/system side get the certs and maybe going into security or sql further down the line. Or the front end web development role and taking it from there. Im thinking of going back to college for at least one year to get my ordinary degree next september as i know itll open alot of gates for me which ever road i decide to take.

Thing is im red/green colour blind and im not sure if this immediatly stops me from getting into front end development as a career? anyone have any feedback maybe have experience with someone that is in the business and is also colorblind or you are yourself colourblind? is there any sort of barriers put up if your colour blind?

cheers

KonFusion

IgsTer wrote: »

Im not sure if this immediatly stops me from getting into front end development as a career?

Simple answer: Nope, not at all

It may be somewhat of a barrier in some situations I'm sure, or if you end up doing some graphic design work, but with regards to dev work & getting a job, I don't see it being a barrier. Once you can see hex codes and RGB values, you can only see in shades of black and white and it won't matter :pac:

tricky D

I'm red/green - most of us colourblind users are - and use it to my advantage in front end matters which form a large part of my work. It can give you an extra edge for accessibility considering the relatively large percentage of colourblind users at 5% in western populations. Also tie it into other vision issues such as poor eyesight, especially for the aged, which is at least another 5%. Too many modern schemes perform very poorly for this part of the audience. It can also be tied into increasing conversion. Most clients have no idea about such matters and the notion of making it difficult for so many users is a problem in need of solving once the implications are known.

Little story: Way back in the early days of Amazon, I got a call from a colourblind friend to look at their Add to Basket button. We both had some difficulty with its visibility. An email was fired off to Amazon and a short while later the button colours changed to something more noticeable for all, like what they have today and a nice voucher went to the friend.

IgsTer

Cheers for the good news. I knew it could be somewhat of a barrier in terms of graphic design but hopefully i wouldnt have to do too much of that and just focus on the develepment side of things and let the graphic designers do there thing. Would I be right in saying unless im working solo self employed all web design companys have certain people for the graphic design and others for the development side? They dont expect you to do both?

Also interesting to see that it can actually help with accessibility never thought of that that having someone whos colourblind in the team could be a helpful addition.

Will have to have a long hard think about which way i want to go now that I know it wont be a barrier for me. thanks for the help lads

KonFusion

IgsTer wrote: »

Would I be right in saying... all web design companys have certain people for the graphic design and others for the development side? They dont expect you to do both?

Depends on the company. There is no all encompassing answer.

stapolinhosting

I just downloaded an app on my phone which shows how things look to someone who is colorblind.. Its almost like night-vision. But definitely an eyeopener because now I understand exactly where your coming from.. but being colorblind should not be a barrier whatsoever if your doing doing development work.

If you did need to know what colors are what, you could use tools like photoshops color picker to get the hex value & rgb values to use in your css. Most good designers should also give you a color chart (hex and/or rgb) of the colors used in their designs.

tricky D

stapolinhosting wrote: »

I just downloaded an app on my phone which shows how things look to someone who is colorblind.. Its almost like night-vision. But definitely an eyeopener because now I understand exactly where your coming from.. but being colorblind should not be a barrier whatsoever if your doing doing development work.

That app likely emulates rarer forms of colourblindness where someone is missing an entire colour which is quite rare. Most colourblindnesses eg. weak red or weak green are so mild that thay are barely noticeable until you do something like the Ishihara test for a driving licence or jobs which involve navigation. For the most common forms, the weak ones, we just perceive colour contrast levels slightly differently eg. my perception of orange starts where normal vision still sees red, but the difference in threshold would really only be around 10% on some sort of RGB measure.

Take a look at: http://www.colblindor.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

The vast majority of forms are: Red-Weak/Protanomaly, Green-Weak/Deuteranomaly, Blue-Weak/Tritanomaly and they would form over 95% of colourblindnesses and would only be a minor issue for development.

These forms would be very rare, but would be a very significant barrier, pretty much to the extent of being a show-stopper : Red-Blind/Protanopia, Green-Blind/Deuteranopia, Blue-Blind/Tritanopia.

The last 2 would only occur in the order of ten per million and would make dev impossible: Monochromacy/Achromatopsia, Blue Cone Monochromacy.

stapolinhosting

tricky D wrote: »

my perception of orange starts where normal vision still sees red, but the difference in threshold would really only be around 10% on some sort of RGB measure.

If thats the case, then graphic design should be no problem to a certain extent. When I looked at the ap, everything was green and blue, there was no other colors.

Take a look at: http://www.colblindor.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

Definitely a better eye opener than the ap i downloaded.

btw, whats your preferred coding language? You do nay PHP/MYSQL work?

desaparecidos

tricky D wrote: »

Take a look at: http://www.colblindor.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

I think I am Green-Weak/Deuteranomaly. I failed a test when in primary school but hasn't affected me since.

I'm trying to wrap my head around how that image looks to a color blind person, mind melted.

stapolinhosting

desaparecidos wrote: »

I think I am Green-Weak/Deuteranomaly. I failed a test when in primary school but hasn't affected me since.

I'm trying to wrap my head around how that image looks to a color blind person, mind melted.

Just looked at it again, from what I can see, the normal image compared to the green-week image is just contrast..

The green-week image is very similar, but a bit less contrast. No colors seem to be missing as such.