Colorblind
Accessibility
Manifesto

Start with “Why?”

Before designing a website, or even making a small change to an existing one, ask if your design choices consider the needs of people with color blindness. Changing the button color on your website may seem insignificant, but it could make that website inaccessible to nearly 8% of men and 0.4% of women who have color blindness.


Don’t communicate only with colors

Can color really be enough to communicate your message? Color can be one element of a much larger picture, but don’t rely on color to serve as the only element of distinction.


Design with shapes

Color-blind people can discern the difference between shapes far more easily than between colors. When you design with shapes, you won’t cause unnecessary additional effort for the people who visit your website.


Choose the right copy

Absolutely avoid identifying tasks or requests to the user only through color. Include other distinguishing characteristics like shape or size.


Test your designs in black and white

Switching the UI to black and white helps you evaluate the composition and the usability of your designs. Without the meaning provided by color, is your UI still working? Can you understand the meaning of every button?


Rethink button states

Color alone does not convey information for everyone. Use shapes and icons that indicate a button’s function.


Use contrast

Don’t default to using green and red to communicate things like product availability or pass/fail. Using icons, text, and high contrast colors such as blue and red will help many (but not all) people with color blindess.


The smaller the item, the bigger the problems

Relying on small, colored elements to signal important information, like updates or status, creates a huge barrier for color-blind people.


Less fancy, more usable

Dear data visualization designer, stop using hundreds of shades to present your data infographics. About 350 million users cannot benefit from it.


More than you think

Although it may seem that color blind people are few, there are actually 350 million. 350 million people you’re closing the door on when you don’t make your site accessible.


Colorblind Accessibility Manifesto

is co-signed by 399 designers
Federico Monaco
Emanuele Coppola
Emanuela Damiani
Alessandro Saglietti
Luca Giraudo
Luca Morano
Marco Amato
Elena Marella
Andrea Pinchi
Stefano Vitti
Antonella Romano
Paulo Ferreira
Francesco Lauriola
Davide Albanese
Matteo Sussio
Matteo Gratton
Michelle Heubush
Samuele Rovituso
Rogier Barendregt
Manuel Pileri
Riccardo Galla
Larry Swanson
Mattia Ducci
Alessandro Moro
Luca Sartore
Armando Cardillo
Matteo Negri
Elisa Fuliano
Enrico Mosca
Antonio Grillo
Federico Gallo
Huw Sambrook
Jabri Whirl
Diego Collo
Luca Spalierno
Saurabh Bedarkar
Nikki Kuhn
Amy Shackles
Ariana Smith
Katherine Moonan
Sanne Peters
Silvio Cioni
Sourav Sarkar
Tay Ashton
Victoria Godfrey
Raffaele Vitale
Gabriele Avanzino
Midori
Andrea Caporale
Yashasri Sadagopan
Debora Bottà
Lucy Pillicino
Stefano Bellucci Sessa
Sofia Woods
Giorgio Calandri
Tarun Karn
Nicola Biagioni
ChiaraCielo Longobardi
Felipe Genuino
Emanuele Vanossi
Elisa Ragazzini
Davide Pisauri
Cecilia Giglio
María Josefina Geisse
Eugenio Peluso
Michele Zamparo
Sunny Manduva
Mirko Santangelo
Flavio Santana
Giovanni Caruso
Nicolò Volpato
Camilla Zampolini
Alina Jafri
Nicolas Torresan
April Chilldres
Vinu Casper
Allegra Caputo
Federico Girotto
Stefano Fois
Jelle Akkerman
Fabrizio Ponzelletti
Francesca Bruschi
Simone Tallarita
Paolo Tonon
Andrea Paci
Virginia Beraldi
Maria Francesca Di Alessandro
Primeshika Fernando
Davide Martignetti
Carlos Jeurissen
Chiara Pacchiarotti
Margherita Provera
Wayne Shih
Giacomo Vergnano
Paolo Spazzini
Mattia Brigliadori
Chris Maslin
David Naunton
Chris Pommer
Patrick George Wyndham Smith
Johanna Hörrmann
Jacob Desaulniers
Eric Eggert
Teresa Pato
Ashok VA
Michael Edelstone
Matteo Gavagnin
Christopher Patnoe
Alicia Jarvis
Sebbe Isaac Kurian
Sarah (Chuck) Allison
Jay Lockwood
Kate Morris
Clive A Ramsden
Nicola Mascotto
Sandyara Peres
Tim J. Poklekowski
Paolo Negri
Lorant Marosi
Andrea Vollf
Martin Lang
Philip Sierzega
José Oliveira
Svetlana Kouznetsova
Cam Beaudoin
Anna Effort
Boris Di Chio
Valerio De Cecio
Andrea Zucchiatti
Claudio Luis Vera
Veronica Leandri
John Oxton-King
Diego Garcia de Oliveira
Renata Torres Alves
Shashank Kumar
Sergei Kriger
Stanton Valentino
Daria Andrea
Alex Ying Chen
Pat Dryburgh
Giulia Cavazzani
Kazuhito Kidachi
Mirko Cappai
Tiziano Tassi
Filippo Elgorni
Todd Chambers
Makoto Ueki
Shivani Shah
Valeria Piccioni
Stéphanie Walter
Michael Spellacy
Ragwa Elsayed
Carlo Frinolli
Terence Fairley
Luca Minici
Teresa Ballotti
Sacha Greif
Rayomand Pavri
Jon Woodcock
Hugo Bermúdez
Alessio Ripa
Luana Cuzzo
Don Hansen
Roxanna Ortega Valdivieso
Anand Chowdhary
Jaslin Tonton
Oscar Hernandez
Russell Bombardieri
Josef Strapáč
Rabin Sharma
Alexis Wollseifen
Pruthvi Panchani
Ilze Koning
Candace Mogan
Sam Sverko
Neelima Salvi
Bruno Salter Mas
Nick Kadolph
Jayman Pandya
Abhijeet Krishna
Nadiya Osmani
Sean Collins
Greg Alchin
Denis Boudreau
Donna Vitan
Rajan Jangra
Reid Burnett
SBLTN (Sublation Studio)
Ikshitha Reddy
Sean P. Hafer
Martin Evert
Shy Lev-Ari
Andrew Arch
Gaia Zuccaro
Piotr Źrołka
Michal Angel
Paul Jesus Benites Romero
Joanne Archer
Cheryl Carey
Phil Robertson
Homer Gaines
Vinicius Cassio Barqueiro
Nikita Matveev
Marie Difolco
Gabriel Thier
Joseph Deffayet
Jonathas Scott
Lee Bartholomew
Melanie Johnstone
Francesco Fullone
Aurora Bertuca
Pooja Lakwal
Chehak Aggarwal
Paracha Writes
Jeffery DeJong
Minette Mangahas
Joseph L Name
Robert E Bolin
Ugo Possenti
Nicola Felaco
Luca Orio
Giuseppe Teatino
Filippo Gianessi
Maria Arango-Kure
Lukas Oppermann
Silvia Bormüller
Vitor Paixão
Batsirai Madzonga
Guenda Patron
Matteus da Costa
Roberto Dadda
Marco Buonvino
Darrough West
Vayia Malamidou
Stefano Raglione
Marco Maria Pedrazzo
Crystal Dionysopoulos
Ester Valorio
Matteo Irato
Joschi Kuphal
Gianluca Paradiso
Federica Spleen Cutrera
Emanuele Pagani
Bogdan Goncharenko
Moritz Gieẞmann
Alexa Heinrich
Charissa Ramirez
Samuele Frola
Francesca Barca
Maurizio Piacenza
Eva Kuttichova
Jon Haines
Laura Costantino
Tatiana Barletta
Stefano De Rosa
Shaleah Dawnyel
Girolamo Giannatempo
Chiara Angori
Davide Zaggia
Kevin Hawkins Jr
Óscar Ernesto Méndez Gutiérrez
David Allin Reese
Lucas Bernardino Dasso
Jay Banik
Hamza Mabrook
Patrick Loubet
Glan Thomas
Jennifer Cafiero
Mara Antonela Di Loreto
Izabela Mrochen
Martin Bolomey
Gwenaëlle Brochoire
Bruce Parks
Haonan Wang
Chris Ota
Callum Brown
Veronika Sax
Mariano Caino
Hianna Sabo
Diana Bernabei
Lilith Rose
Leonam Brunhari
Lani Hathaway
Faye Tremlett
Elspeth Watson
Tom Tomlinson
Thomas Logan
Costanza Volpini
Sarah Shanklin
Álvaro Cuesta Marcos
Gregg Vanderheiden
Zoe Jones
Avishek Sarkar
Simone Ferraro
Maria Trombin
Bela Gaytan
Inka Ilona Taagehøj
Mattia Picca
Stefano Dominici
Betty Ward
Bob Baxley
Simone Vignati
Stefano De Villa
Alessandro Caliandro
Naomi Langone
Mark Lais
Ciara Salmon
Sabrina Vigil
Alice Orrù
Camilla Maccaferri
Cintia Pereira Romero Garcia
Maurizio De Moliner
Alex Kotomanov
Shyla Taylor
Jennifer Benaggoun
Laura Paveglio
Angela Young
Christopher Nguyen
Liz Brown
Luca Rosati
Jacopo Pompilii
Maria Mejia
Erin Beel
Maria Sereno
Gianvito Fanelli
Ezequiel Gioia
Hartwell Read Pollard
Vladimir Karakusevic
Jai Luke Hastrich
Kobi Jae Masterson
Isotta Carrera
Nate Waddoups
Nate Baldwin
André Golliez
Philipp Bachmann
Oliver Vaupel
Mattia Rizzo
Afra Pascual Almenara
José Ramón Hilera
John Helmes
Davide Genco
Gabriele Malaspina
Michela Ferron
Federica Caruso
Matt Stow
Bernhard Ruoff
Yannick Nana
Mattia Folcarelli
Riccardo Marini
Pankaj Kamthan
Mekog Lam
Maddalena Zampitelli
Murray Inman
Chaitali Pal Chowdhury
Kaye Moors
Samuele Bertani
Daniel Borchert Avalone
Marz Gorzynksi
Erik Ferrier
Toni León
Cecilie Authén
Shawna N.M. Barnes
Tiegan Carter-Edwards
David Naunton
Floris van de Sande
Sarah Ann Williams
Semih Yilmaz
Stefano Minoia
Anna Zaremba
Julian Gonzalez
Ronny Hendriks
Pietro Bonura
Andrea Accatino
Giulia Contessa
Bettina Weinholtz
Enea Nurri
Imre Guaglianone
Simon Phillips
Tiago Almeida
Crispín Gómez Juan Carlos
Piero Cutilli
Michele Cecchini
Marco Bertoni
Alessio Cardelli
Luisa Armenia
Hermes J. López Alba
Marco Livi
Tommaso Baldovino
Simona Coppola
Claudia Costantini
Moritz Gießmann
Thiago Hapner
Guilherme Nagüeva
Francesco Corti
Aniket Anil Bhosale
Marcelo Paiva
Anna Ammendolia
Jack McElaney
Valerie Hall