Color Oracle - Colour Impairment Screen Filter

This is a very cool tool that I have been using for a while now which simulates colour blindness on your screen. According to the website 8% of males have some degree of colour visual impairment so this is something well worth considering if you intend to reach a wide audience with graphical content.

The application is available for Mac, Windows and Linux although I have only used the Mac version. It sits in the menu bar where you can change the current filter (there are three types) and also save a screen shot with the current filter applied. It is has a very low CPU and RAM usage so there's no need to worry about it if you have large Photoshop projects open.

Although this has many applications I mainly use it when designing colour schemes for web sites. Content needs to look different enough to be distinguished by the user (such as links etc.) whilst maintaining an aesthetically pleasing design.

The website has some great tips on designing for the visually impaired and explains colour blindness in a little more detail.

If you don't do any form of graphic design it's still worth checking out to see the effects of different types of colour blindness. It's a tiny download and easily removed.
You will be amazed at how different the world can look, try looking at some landscape or animal photos with the filter on.

Color Oracle