How can you see through someone else’s eyes? Around 1 in 12 men suffer from color blindness, but understanding what it’s like to live in a color blind world is virtually impossible. Fortunately, a new iOs app, Color Blind Pal, is about to revolutionize the lives of many around the world, while also showing people with normal vision how color blind individuals experience the nuances of colors around them.
Life in technicolor
Color blind users can now use their iPhone camera to see accurate shades and tints. But how? Color Blind Pal uses filters and a slider tool to help calibrate the hues, so they are easily distinguished from each other. The developer behind the app stated on Imgur: “I made an app that uses my phone’s camera to shift colors so I can see them better. I didn’t realize there were so many colors!”
Color blind clients have commented
“Just got this yesterday,” a user said. “As someone who is colorblind and tired of asking others the color of things, this App is great.”
People affected by the condition can use color filters to classify colors. Those with normal vision, however, can also use them to simulate any type of color blindness.
What’s color blindness?
Most of us share a common color vision sensory experience. Some people’s perception, however, is different. Color blindness – or, more accurately, color vision deficiency – is not a form of blindness at all, but a deficit in the way an individual perceives hues. People affected by the condition, have difficulty distinguishing certain colors, such as blue and yellow or red and green. This condition results from an absence of color-sensitive pigment in the cone cells of the retina, the nerve layer at the back of the eye. According to Prevent Blindness America, in our color-oriented world, an estimated 8 percent of males and less than 1 percent of females have color vision problems.
Test the new app to see how you might cope if you were affected by color blindness. Do you know anyone who is color blind? Share your experiences in the comments section below.
