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Color meaning

Color blindness is the inability or decreased ability to see color or perceive color differences. Approximately 4.5% of the world's population are color blind to some degree. In order to ensure that someone with color blindness can successfully use your product, you cannot rely completely on color alone to communicate information. By extension, using colors or patterns alone to indicate something will not be accessible to blind users. In instances where you are using color as an indicator (for instance, green for something active and grey for something inactive), include a text equivalent description for the state.

Here's an example where providing a very simple texture to a bar chart will aid in readability and understanding for someone with decreased color perception.

Chart showing bar graph without texture
Figure A: Chart without Texture
Chart showing bar graph with distinct textures for each bar
Figure B: Chart with Texture