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I am colourblind and I am considering a career in Business Analysis and User Experience.

Would this be a problem for me?

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    I rage every time I see that enemies' names are supposed to be red and allies' are supposed to be green in a game. I am colorblind. It took me 5 whole years to figure out that the lights on my modem were green. When I see someone pointing a gun at me I ain't got that time to yell for my brother to tell me the color. (I can hardly distinguish between red and green in the spectrum) In other words, I think colorblind individuals are a great addition to any UX project. And in many cases, their contribution is extremely important.
    – Vercas
    Commented Apr 26, 2014 at 15:09
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    I have a coworker who is red/green colourblind and successfully graduated with a graphic design degree. It's not the handicap it may at first appear to be.
    – Kit Grose
    Commented Apr 27, 2014 at 5:12
  • cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/17704423.jpg
    – Lovis
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 9:08

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No problem!

In fact, it could be an advantage :-)

The argument behind "No problem" is that most of the UX-work is not related to "colors" at all. To design a good user experience, you'd need to do proper user research, design and conduct usability tests, set UX-requrements, communicate with staff, developers and management etc etc.

So how could this be an advantage?
Well, "accessibility" in general is one of the UX-aspects we should pay more attention to. There are even some national laws that requires web sites to be universally accessible. IMHE, too many people neglect these aspects. Simply because they haven't experienced anyone having a hard time with this.
By being a "living evidence", you will definitely emphasize the importance of these issues. ;-)

If you would like to make the digital world a better place: Go ahead!

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  • "most of the UX-work is not related to "colors" at all". Excuse me? When it comes to digital UX, 95% of the experience is conveyed through pixels. What exactly are pixels, if not color? That said, I do agree that there can be an advantage in being color blind for UX tasks. After all, I'm not color blind and, notwithstanding color blind simulators, cannot even begin to imagine what the world looks like to the color blind.
    – Igor Asselbergs
    Commented Apr 27, 2014 at 8:24
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    @IgorAsselbergs you are terribly wrong dude. UX Design is definetly not UI Design. Actually UX Design regroups a lots of roles, UI Design included but most them is not about pixels.
    – Gabin
    Commented Apr 27, 2014 at 12:03
  • @IgorAsselbergs: except for very informal settings, color is not white vs black but red vs green vs blue, etc, specifically your visions perception of varying wavelengths of light, which is just a portion of what the pixels display. You can change a given UI to be completely monochrome, eliminating all color, without too much trouble.
    – whatsisname
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 4:04
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    I'll second the 'could be advantage': because our mental system handles inputs from the world so well, its sometimes difficult to spot those situations where it sometimes gets tripped up - and we tend to assume that just because we can see / understand something, everyone must see it in the same way.
    – PhillipW
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 10:49
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There is NO reason why you should not pursue it.I mean, if you are passionate about it.. go for it.

I am not colourblind, but I have several friends who are and I have made it one of my primary focuses in my own career as a UI/UX designer.

I am continually baffled that companies etc. will insist on ie X support when it's less than 4% of the market, and yet totally ignore the 18-20% of colourblind individuals.

Best of luck.

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    Where did you get the 18-20% figure? It's closer to 10% in men and about 1% in women.
    – Vitaly Mijiritsky
    Commented Apr 27, 2014 at 7:49
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I had an Interaction Design teacher that what visually impaired and had to wear a magnifier on her glasses when reading something. She is however highly considered in the UX branche in the Netherlands and often speaks at conferences. Her expertise is accessibility.

Colour blindness can become your unique selling point.

Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you. - Tyrion Lannister

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I don't agree with previous answers that "colors don't matter in UX". They do matter, a lot! But, as long as you understand the meaning of each color and its proper use cases, and are able to identify the color (even if it looks "different" to you), you should be just fine.

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  • I never said that colours don't matter. I said that most UX work is not related to colours (ref. UI vs UX). Further: "good design" should by definition be usable for colour blind people too, so at the end of the day it shouldn't matter. If it matters - you have done it wrong.
    – Jørn E. Angeltveit
    Commented Apr 27, 2014 at 14:32

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