What can help people with color blindness?

Labels, apps and patterns instead of color alone

Color Blindness Quiz: Cones, Ishihara Plates and Red-Green

This color blindness quiz looks through different eyes. Play 10 interactive questions on the three types of cone cells, why red-green color blindness is most common, why it affects many more men than women, John Dalton's description of his own condition, the Ishihara dot test, rarer blue-yellow and total color blindness, and tools that help.

Start Color Blindness Quiz

🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Cones
Which eye cells detect color?
Common
What is the most common type of color blindness?
Men
Roughly how many men of Northern European descent have red-green color blindness?
Women
Roughly how many women are affected?
Why
Why is it more common in men?
Dalton
Which scientist described his own color blindness in 1794?
Test
Which test uses circles of colored dots with hidden numbers?
Blue
Which type is much rarer?
Total
What is seeing no color at all called?
Help
What can help people with color blindness?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: Which eye cells detect color?
Answer: Cones
Most people have three kinds.
Q2: What is the most common type of color blindness?
Answer: Red-green
Reds and greens can look similar.
Q3: Roughly how many men of Northern European descent have red-green color blindness?
Answer: About 1 in 12
Women are far less often affected.
Q4: Roughly how many women are affected?
Answer: About 1 in 200
They need the gene on both X chromosomes.
Q5: Why is it more common in men?
Answer: The genes are on the X chromosome
Men have one X chromosome.
Q6: Which scientist described his own color blindness in 1794?
Answer: John Dalton
It was once called Daltonism.
Q7: Which test uses circles of colored dots with hidden numbers?
Answer: Ishihara test
It was created in 1917.
Q8: Which type is much rarer?
Answer: Blue-yellow
It can also come with disease.
Q9: What is seeing no color at all called?
Answer: Achromatopsia
It is very rare.
Q10: What can help people with color blindness?
Answer: Labels, apps and patterns instead of color alone
Design choices matter.

Seeing the World in Different Colors

Most people have three kinds of cone cells in the retina, sensitive to different wavelengths, which the brain combines into color. In color blindness, one cone type is missing or works differently, making some colors hard to tell apart.

Red-green color blindness is most common, affecting about 1 in 12 men and about 1 in 200 women of Northern European descent. The genes are on the X chromosome, so men, with one X, are affected more often. Scientist John Dalton described his own condition in 1794, and it was once called Daltonism.

The Ishihara test, created in 1917, uses circles of colored dots hiding numbers. Blue-yellow color blindness is much rarer, and total color blindness, achromatopsia, is very rare. Labels, apps and designs that use patterns and text, not color alone, help people with color blindness.

What This Quiz Teaches

Body science fans will enjoy these questions.

How we see color
Which type is common
Why men are affected more
How it is tested
What helps

Did You Know?

Special glasses help some people.
Traffic lights use position as a cue.
Some animals see fewer colors.
Video games add colorblind modes.
Many people do not know they have it.