What Does It Look Like to Be Colorblind? What Most People Get Wrong

If you’ve ever asked a colorblind person "What color is this?" while pointing at a random blade of grass or a blue mailbox, you’re basically committing the "colorblindness cardinal sin." It’s annoying. Not because the person is being sensitive, but because the question itself is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how their eyes actually process the world.

Most people think colorblindness is like living in a 1940s film. Black, white, and gray. Total noir.

In reality, that condition—achromatopsia—is incredibly rare, affecting roughly 1 in 30,000 people. For the other 300 million people worldwide dealing with Color Vision Deficiency (CVD), the world is plenty colorful. It’s just... off. Think of it like a radio station that isn't quite tuned in. You hear the music, but there’s static, and sometimes two different songs start blending into one messy noise.

So, what does it look like to be colorblind in a world designed by people with "standard" vision? It’s less about seeing a "missing" color and more about the frustration of colors overlapping until they become indistinguishable.

The "Muddy" Reality of Red-Green Deficiency

Red-green colorblindness is the heavy hitter. It’s the one your nephew probably has or that guy in your office who always wears mismatched socks accidentally.

Biologically, it’s usually about the M-cones (green) and L-cones (red) in your retina. In a "normal" eye, these cones respond to different wavelengths of light. But in someone with deuteranomaly or protanomaly, those response curves overlap too much.

Imagine a box of 64 Crayola crayons. Now, take all the reds, browns, oranges, and dark greens, throw them into a blender, and pour out five slightly different shades of "khaki." That’s the vibe.

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For someone with deuteranomaly (the most common type), a lush green forest doesn't look like a vibrant emerald wonderland. It looks like a sea of muted yellow and gold. If you’ve ever seen a map of the United States where the states are colored in alternating pastels, a colorblind person might see a giant, monochromatic blob where the borders between Ohio and Indiana simply vanish because the pink and light green look identical.

Then you have protanopia. This is where the red cones are completely missing. To these folks, red isn't just "muted"—it’s dark. A bright red Ferrari might look like a black or dark grey car. A stoplight? The red light looks like a dim, dirty amber. It’s a safety issue, sure, but it’s also a beauty issue. They’re missing the "pop" that makes a sunset look like it's on fire.

Blue-Yellow Confusion: The Rare Middle Ground

Then there’s Tritanopia. This one is weird.

It’s way less common than the red-green variety, and it isn't linked to the X chromosome, so it hits men and women equally. If you have this, you aren't struggling with Christmas colors. You’re struggling with the sky and the grass.

Blue looks green. Yellow looks like a pale violet or even a light grey.

Think about how much we rely on blue to represent "calm" or "water." For a tritanope, a tropical ocean doesn't look like a turquoise paradise; it might look like a muddy, greenish pond. It’s a total shift in the visual palette. The world looks more like an Instagram filter from 2012—heavy on the pinks and cyans, light on the natural yellows.

The Design Flaws of Modern Life

We live in a world built for trichromats. That's the fancy word for people with three functioning cone types. Because of this, "what does it look like to be colorblind" often translates to "what does it look like to be constantly confused by UI design."

Take LED indicators. You know the little light on your laptop charger that turns from red to green when it’s charged?

Total nightmare.

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To a colorblind person, that light might look exactly the same in both states. They have to lean in, squint, and guess. Or think about the London Underground map. It’s a masterpiece of design, unless you can't tell the difference between the District Line (green) and the Central Line (red). In that case, it’s just a chaotic web of gray-brown strings.

Board games are another battlefield. If you’ve ever played Catan or Ticket to Ride with someone who is colorblind, you’ve seen the struggle. They’ll ask "Is this piece red or orange?" three times in ten minutes. It’s not that they’re forgetful. It’s that in the specific lighting of your dining room, those two colors are vibrating at a frequency their brain can't untangle.

It Isn't Always a Disability

Interestingly, there’s some evidence that being colorblind isn't all bad.

During World War II, it was rumored that colorblind observers were better at spotting camouflaged snipers or hidden installations. Why? Because they aren't distracted by color. When you can’t rely on "green" to identify a bush, your brain gets really, really good at looking for patterns, textures, and outlines.

If a sniper is wearing green camo in a green forest, a person with standard vision sees a wall of green. A colorblind person sees the unnatural "texture" of the fabric against the organic texture of the leaves. They see the shape, not the shade.

There's a certain sharpness to that kind of vision. It’s a world of high contrast. While they might miss the subtle blush on a peach, they might be faster at spotting a rabbit hiding in tall, dry grass because they’re tuned into the movement and the form rather than the hue.

The Science of "Seeing" Without Cones

We have to talk about the EnChroma phenomenon. You’ve probably seen the viral videos. A guy puts on a pair of glasses, looks at a garden, and starts sobbing because he can finally "see" color.

Are they faking it? Not exactly. But it’s not magic.

These glasses work by using an optical notch filter. Remember how I said the red and green light waves overlap? The glasses literally cut out the "overlap" wavelengths. By creating a gap between the red and green signals, they help the brain distinguish between them.

However, they don’t "fix" colorblindness. They don't give you new cones. They just manipulate the light so the cones you do have can work more effectively. If you're a dichromat (missing a cone entirely), these glasses won't do much of anything. It’s a nuance often lost in the "clickbait" world of social media.

Living With the "Invisible" Mismatch

Most colorblind people go through life just fine, but the "what does it look like" part of their day involves a lot of mental gymnastics.

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• Cooking Meat: This is a big one. How do you know if the ground beef is browned or if the chicken is still pink? You don't. You use a thermometer or you ask your partner. Seeing the "doneness" of food is a color-dependent skill most people take for granted.
• Weather Maps: Those Doppler radars showing green (rain), yellow (heavy rain), and red (hail)? Yeah, that’s just one big smudge to a lot of people.
• Fashion: A lot of colorblind men stick to a very specific wardrobe. Lots of blues, blacks, and greys. Why? Because you can’t mess those up. If you start venturing into "earth tones," you risk showing up to a funeral in a forest-green suit that you genuinely thought was charcoal.

According to Dr. Jay Neitz, a renowned color vision researcher at the University of Washington, the way we experience color is incredibly subjective anyway. Even "normal" sighted people don't see the same red. But for the colorblind, the gap between their "red" and the world's "red" is a constant, subtle reminder that they are viewing a slightly different version of reality.

How to Actually Be Helpful

If you want to make life easier for someone who sees the world this way, stop asking them to name colors. Instead, focus on how we present information.

If you're designing a presentation for work, don't use a red font to highlight "bad" numbers and green for "good" ones. Use bolding. Use icons (a thumbs up or a warning triangle). If you're labeling something, use text, not just a color-coded dot.

Modern operating systems are actually getting pretty good at this. Apple and Google both have "Color Filters" in their accessibility settings. These filters shift the entire display's palette to increase contrast for specific types of CVD. It doesn't make the screen look "correct" to a non-colorblind person—it actually makes it look pretty hideous—but for the user, it makes the "invisible" visible.

What to Do if You Think You’re Colorblind

If you've spent your whole life thinking peanut butter is green (it’s not, it’s brown/tan, but many colorblind people see it as green), you might want to check your vision.

1. Take an Ishihara Test: These are those circles made of colorful dots with a number hidden inside. It’s the gold standard for quick screening. You can find legitimate versions online through organizations like Color Will or various optometry associations.
2. Get a Formal Diagnosis: An eye doctor can use an anomaloscope. It's much more precise. It can tell you exactly which cones are wonky and by how much.
3. Audit Your Environment: If you struggle at work with specific software, check the "Accessibility" tab. Most modern apps (Slack, Trello, even Excel) have colorblind modes that change the palette to high-contrast blues and oranges.
4. Try Assistive Tech: Apps like "Color Blind Pal" use your phone's camera to identify colors in real-time. You point it at a shirt, and it says "Mauve." It’s a lifesaver for shopping.

The world doesn't look "broken" to someone who is colorblind. It just looks like... the world. It’s only when they bump up against systems designed for everyone else that the "blindness" actually manifests. By shifting our design language from "color-coded" to "shape-and-text-coded," we make the world readable for everyone, regardless of how their cones are tuned.

Actionable Next Steps:

• Check your digital products: If you're a creator, run your website through a "Colorblind Web Page Filter" to see if your "Buy Now" button disappears into the background.
• Update your terminology: Stop saying "What color is this?" and start asking "Can you distinguish these two items?"
• Explore your settings: If you suspect you have CVD, turn on the "Protanopia" or "Deuteranopia" filters on your smartphone for a day to see if the interface becomes clearer.