| 0;Innumerable Web sites and charts and graphs used | | | | “They’ve been very good about |
| in business are just mush to me,” said Jim | | | | accommodating me -- not only are the lines in color, |
| Doane. Font colors and background colors make the | | | | they also have symbolic representation like an X or an |
| reading impossible for Doane. He is one of the two in | | | | O. So when they make a presentation to me, I can |
| one hundred males (and rare females) who is severely | | | | figure out what they mean. I know it’s been a |
| affected by color vision deficiency (CVD) or | | | | struggle for them, because what I see is absolutely |
| colorblindness. He, like most people so affected, does | | | | incomprehensible to them, but they’ve been |
| see blue and yellow, so he is not “blind” | | | | very good to me. They do know what I can see |
| to color. | | | | now.” |
| Web developer Ed Nolan keeps people like Doane in | | | | When he first started working, Doane says people |
| mind. He has an unusual occupation, especially for | | | | dressed conservatively. “My wife embroidered |
| someone with CVD. Nolan is one of the 1:12 males | | | | everything with dots,” he said. “So items |
| affected (1:200 females are affected) by CVD. | | | | with one dot went together and items with two dots |
| Although not as severely affected as Doane, Nolan | | | | went together. And everything with three dots went |
| can tell red from green; however, he remembers | | | | together. In the years we’ve been married, she |
| coloring a picture of a boy green when he was in | | | | went from that to buying me clothes she thought were |
| elementary school. “It looked tan to me,” | | | | outlandish and I thought were pretty dull. Now I buy |
| he said. As a Web developer, Nolan works with colors | | | | clothes myself from one particular salesperson.” |
| every day, which he does numerically. “What | | | | Deliberately playing tricks on him because of his color |
| might look the same or very similar to me may be | | | | vision is something else Jim has had to contend with. |
| worlds apart numerically,” he said. | | | | He said co-workers have created colorful graphs, then |
| An engineer, Doane said his secretary marks colorful | | | | laughed at his discomfort when he couldn‘t |
| charts and grafts with the name of the color. | | | | absorb information. He wished they’d find |
| “Then I know what people are talking about | | | | another form of amusement. |
| before I went to a meeting,” he said. | | | | “My colorblindness didn’t bother me |
| Doane said he had a map in front of him, | | | | much on the job until the mid ’80s when people |
| “I’m working on a project to integrate | | | | started getting color copiers. Then they felt obligated to |
| the water projects of two towns and the whole darn | | | | use all 256,000 colors,” he said. That isn’t |
| thing is color coded. I had to have somebody go thru it | | | | the only modern convenience that bothers him. |
| and mark all the lines with their color names. What I | | | | “Some power point presentations have a laser |
| found, though, is that even people with good color | | | | pointer, which I can’t see.” |
| vision have trouble sometimes because the people | | | | If you have any questions about what a person with |
| making the lines don’t do a very good job with | | | | colorblindness can or cannot see, remember there are |
| contrast.” | | | | many degrees of CVD. Asking would be the best |
| Doane is a volunteer on the board of the joint water | | | | course of action, whether or not you know someone |
| commission in his county. He said, | | | | like Doane or Nolan is in your audience. |
