ColourID

Abstract

Being able to identify colours is a fundamental human activity; colour identification helps us work, get dressed, prepare food, and keep safe. But for the 5% of the world with impaired colour vision (ICV), colour identification is often a challenge, resulting in frustration and confusion with sometimes dangerous consequences. Colour namer tools have been proposed as a solution, however these are often slow to use and imprecise. To address these shortcomings, we developed three new colour identification techniques (ColourNames, ColourMeters, ColourPopper) using a new colour name dictionary based on the largest colour naming experiment to date. We compared our techniques to colour namers using participants with ICV in desktop and mobile conditions, and found that ColourNames and ColourPopper resulted in ∼99% colour identification accuracy (10% higher than the colour namer), ColourMeters and ColourPopper were three times faster, and ColourPopper had lower perceived effort and was ranked significantly higher. With the benefits provided by our new colour identification techniques, people with ICV are one step closer to seeing the world like everyone else.

HCI Research as Problem-Solving

“…Some constructive papers are explicit about the problems. ColourID [14], a tool for improving colour Problem-solving or not? The Boundaries of HCI Research #chi4good, CHI 2016, San Jose, CA, USA identification by visually impaired users, is an attempt to rectify the fact that existing tools are 'often slow to use and imprecise' (p. 3543).…”

“…Many provide design guidelines [51], concepts [29], and ideas for how to improve existing systems [8]. Most of these are about empirical problems; it was rare to see a paper tackling a construction problem that offered outputs that practitioners could take up and use (though exceptions exist [14,50]).…”

Co-design of Color Identification Applications Using Scenario-Based Personas for People with Impaired Color Vision

“…Many people who have visual disabilities worldwide depend on mobile applications to augment their sensory abilities [4][5][6][7][8]. A large part of them are unable to detect colors.…”

“…A large part of them are unable to detect colors. In recent years, color identification technologies have been designed for people who have visual disabilities [6,7]. Techniques range from color detection based on image processing (e.g.…”