Color-blindness and maps
Color blindness is an eye condition in which someone can’t see the difference between certain colors, although it is not as severe as the partial or total inability of visual perception (visual impairment) it affect the way people see maps and perceive the information thereon since color is one of the most prominent visual variable in map making.
Read the article on color blindness from Colour Blind Awareness, UK – Community Interest Company (non-profit) for the basics of color blindness.
The three articles on the Datawrapper blog by Lisa Charlotte Muth entitled:
- How your colorblind and colorweak readers see your colors
- What to consider when visualizing data for colorblind readers
- What’s it like to be colorblind
provide a wonderful basis of discusion on visualizing data accessible to the colordlind.
ESRI has also a very useful article on Designing maps for colorblind readability by Stephanie Oliver.
The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) proposes some colorblind safe color schemes.
And finally, the paper by Jenny, B., & Kelso, N. V. (2007). Color Design for the Color Vision Impaired. Cartographic Perspectives, (58), 61–67. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP58.270 is also a good reccommendation on the subject.
TomTom, the company which provides navigation apps worldwide, uses color palettes for inclusive map design especially for colorblind users, as advocated in the article Mapping for color blindness: High contrast dedicated color schemes, by Olivia Vahsen.