Author’s Note: This article is written from the personal experience of someone who is very colorblind. What follows is part information, part confession, and part therapy. If at any point it reads less like an objective discussion and more like a long-overdue emotional processing of years spent being betrayed by color-coded systems, that is not entirely accidental. And if you’ve ever wondered, “Why do the pictures and tables of contents in Commonplace Fun Facts occasionally feature color combinations that seem like they should come with a trigger warning?”—well, now you know.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who trust their eyes without question, and those who have learned—through years of experience—that their eyes are occasionally freelancing.

People with typical color vision tend to move through life with a quiet confidence that colors are fixed, obvious, and universally agreed upon. When they encounter someone who is colorblind, they react with a mixture of curiosity and mild disbelief, as though they have just stumbled upon a unicorn quietly hiding out in the next cubicle. They cannot quite understand how someone could look at the same shirt, the same tie, the same pair of socks, and arrive at a completely different conclusion about whether those things belong together.

Meanwhile, people with colorblindness are navigating a very different reality—one that includes a low-grade, ever-present anxiety about the next color-coded pie chart that will demand interpretation. They carry the emotional scars of outfits that, in hindsight, may have resembled a modern art installation more than a coordinated ensemble. They have developed a reflexive internal wince for the inevitable moment when someone discovers their condition, grabs the nearest object, and asks with great enthusiasm, “What color does this look like to you?”

It is a conversation that rarely ends with clarity and often concludes with everyone involved questioning reality just a little more than they did before.

Welcome to the frequently misunderstood, occasionally inconvenient, and surprisingly common world of colorblindness.

The Great Crayon Betrayal

For many people, colorblindness makes its first appearance during childhood, usually in the form of a coloring catastrophe.

A child confidently fills in a dog with what appears to be a shade best described as “radioactive orange,” only to be mockingly informed by siblings and peers that no dog in the history of the world has ever been that color. The child, quite reasonably, is forced to ponder why everyone else sees things so differently. And by “differently,” we mean “wrong.”

This moment is often dismissed as a lack of artistic discipline. In reality, it may be the first sign that the child’s eyes are not interpreting the world in the same way as everyone else’s.

And thus begins a lifetime of quiet suspicion that the rest of humanity may be in on a color-based conspiracy.

What Colorblindness Actually Is (And Isn’t)

Despite what cartoons and well-meaning explanations may suggest, colorblindness does not usually mean seeing the world in black and white, like a 1940s detective film.

Instead, it is usually a matter of difficulty distinguishing between certain colors. The most common form is red-green colorblindness, which sounds straightforward until you realize that it does not mean “red disappears” and “green vanishes.” It means those colors can look confusingly similar under certain conditions, like two distant relatives who insist on dressing alike at family reunions.

If you have ever encountered terms like “deuteranope” and wondered whether you accidentally wandered into a biology lecture or a little-known dinosaur from the Cretaceous Era, you are not alone. The terminology for colorblindness is rooted in the science of the eye’s cone cells, which are responsible for detecting color. Humans typically have three types of cones—sensitive to red, green, and blue light. When one of these doesn’t work properly, things get interesting. A deuteranope has a deficiency in the green-sensitive cones, which means reds and greens start blending together like a poorly supervised paint project. A protanope has trouble with red cones, often making reds appear darker or indistinguishable from greens. A tritanope, the rarest of the group, struggles with blue-yellow distinctions. Add a few more variations—like “anomaly” versions where the cones sort of work but not convincingly—and you end up with a naming system that sounds intimidating but ultimately boils down to one simple reality: the wiring is slightly different, and the color wheel is no longer playing by the standard rules.

Also worth noting: complete color blindness, where someone truly sees only shades of gray, is extremely rare. Most people with colorblindness see plenty of color. They just do not always agree with everyone else about what those colors are called.

A Question About Perception

That also raises the question of just how much of seeing colors depends upon other factors. Color perception turns out to be less about what your eyes are capable of seeing and more about what your brain has been trained to notice. As we explored in Did Ancient People See Blue?, ancient cultures weren’t biologically incapable of seeing blue—they simply didn’t treat it as a distinct category. Without a word for it, the brain tended to group it with other colors like green or black, which meant people could look directly at the sky and still not “see” blue in the way we do today.

This is where things get slightly unsettling. Our eyes can detect millions of colors, but our brains simplify that information into categories based largely on language and experience. If a culture—or an individual—doesn’t have a clear mental label for a color, that color can become harder to distinguish or even consciously notice. In other words, we don’t just see with our eyes; we see with our expectations. Which explains a great deal about why two people can look at the same shirt and come away with entirely different opinions—and both be absolutely convinced they are right.

It’s also possible to trick your brain into making your eyes see impossible colors, further cementing the notion that your brain, rather than your eyes, is the culprit in this cautionary tale.

How Common Is Colorblindness (And Why It Picks on Men)

Colorblindness is far more common than most people realize, although it does not distribute itself evenly. About 1 in 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency, compared to roughly 1 in 200 women. This is not because men are making poor decisions—at least not in this case—but because of how the genetics work.

The most common forms of colorblindness are linked to the X chromosome. Men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, which means if the X they inherit carries color vision deficiency, that is the version they are stuck with. There is no backup copy. Women, on the other hand, have two X chromosomes. If one carries the trait, the other usually compensates, which is why women are far less likely to be colorblind.

This also leads to some interesting family patterns. A mother can carry the gene without being colorblind herself and pass it on to her sons. Fathers who are colorblind will pass the gene to all of their daughters (who typically become carriers) but none of their sons, because sons inherit the Y chromosome from their father. The result is a condition that tends to hop across generations in a way that feels less like straightforward inheritance and more like a genetic game of tag.

Common Misconceptions (That Refuse to Retire)

Colorblindness suffers from a public relations problem. It is widely known, frequently referenced, and almost always misunderstood.

The first myth is that all colorblind people see in grayscale. They do not. Most see a full range of colors, just with some overlap in places where most people perceive clear distinctions.

The second myth is that they cannot see red or green at all. In reality, those colors may appear muted, shifted, or easily confused with others. It is less like turning off a light and more like adjusting the brightness until everything looks vaguely suspicious.

The third myth is that people know they are colorblind from an early age. Many do not. Some discover it only when they fail a vision test, misinterpret a chart, or spend years assuming the reason no girls would go out with them was a personality disorder—rather than the fact that they dressed in color combinations that attracted bees and triggered photosensitive epilepsy in innocent bystanders. (We told you this was partialy written as therapy.)

The final myth is that it does not matter and that it’s nothing more than a genetic quirk like having red hair or a unibrow. This is typically stated by people who have never had to interpret a graph that relies entirely on red and green lines to convey critical information.

The Everyday Struggles Nobody Thinks About

Colorblindness does not usually announce itself in dramatic fashion. It operates quietly, inserting small moments of confusion into otherwise normal situations.

Consider the modern world’s deep and abiding love for color-coding. Charts, graphs, maps, traffic lights, wiring systems, dashboards—everything is organized by color, often with the helpful instruction to “just follow the red line.”

This advice is less helpful when the red line and the green line appear suspiciously similar, like twins attempting to switch places in a sitcom.

Then there is clothing. Matching outfits becomes less a matter of taste and more a matter of probability. Many people with colorblindness develop elaborate systems involving labels, trusted second opinions, or a firm commitment to neutrals.

Food presents its own challenges. Determining whether meat is fully cooked or fruit is properly ripe can become an exercise in guesswork, intuition, and occasionally, courage.

Technology, which was supposed to simplify life, often adds to the confusion. Error messages in red, success messages in green, and interfaces that assume everyone sees a clear distinction between the two can create a surprisingly high-stakes guessing game.

The Invisible Kind of Discrimination

Colorblindness also introduces a subtle form of disadvantage that rarely makes headlines but shows up everywhere.

In the workplace, color-coded materials can slow people down or lead to mistakes. A chart that looks perfectly clear to one person may look like an abstract art project to another.

Some professions have strict color vision requirements. Pilots, electricians, and train operators, for example, often need to pass color vision tests. This is understandable from a safety perspective, but it also means that a person’s career options can be shaped by how their eyes interpret wavelengths of light.

More broadly, many systems are designed with the assumption that everyone sees color the same way. They do not. This creates a quiet but persistent gap between what is intended and what is experienced.

No one sets out to exclude colorblind individuals. It just happens, one poorly designed chart at a time.

How the Colorblind Navigate the World

Humans are remarkably adaptable, and people with colorblindness are no exception.

Many develop strategies that would impress a seasoned detective. Traffic lights, for example, are memorized by position rather than color. Context clues replace color cues. Patterns, labels, and relative brightness become the tools of choice.

Technology has also stepped in to help. There are apps that identify colors, accessibility settings that adjust contrast, and even specialized glasses designed to enhance color differentiation.

These glasses are often marketed with dramatic reveal videos featuring emotional reactions. While they can improve contrast for some users, they do not “cure” colorblindness. They are more like giving your eyes a helpful nudge than a complete software overhaul.

Traffic lights are one of the few places where society has, somewhat begrudgingly, acknowledged that not everyone sees color the same way—and then immediately decided to proceed anyway. For people with colorblindness, the basic challenge is simple: distinguishing between red, yellow, and green is not always as straightforward as the rest of the driving public seems to think. Bright sunlight, glare, distance, and certain types of street lighting can make those colors blur together in ways that turn a routine intersection into a brief moment of existential doubt.

Fortunately, the system has a built-in workaround, even if most people don’t realize it. Traffic lights are standardized by position—red on top (or left), yellow in the middle, green on the bottom (or right)—and colorblind drivers quickly learn to rely on that instead of the color itself. It becomes less about “What color is that?” and more about “Which light is it?” In some places, designers have gone a step further by adding shapes, symbols, or even countdown timers to make signals easier to interpret, quietly admitting that maybe relying entirely on color was not the most universally accessible idea.

The real complications begin when you leave your home country and discover that traffic lights, like electrical outlets and portion sizes, are not as standardized as you were led to believe. Some countries use horizontal lights instead of vertical ones, others add extra phases like a combined red-and-yellow signal before green, and some even tweak the colors themselves—Japan, for example, uses a bluish-green light that can look more like “blue” than “green” depending on your eyes.

Under normal circumstances, these differences are mildly confusing. For someone who already relies on position, brightness, and context rather than color, they can feel like the rules of the game have been quietly rewritten mid-play. It is entirely manageable, but it does require a heightened level of attention—and perhaps a renewed appreciation for the comforting predictability of the traffic lights back home, which at least have the decency to be confusing in a familiar way.

The Unexpected Advantages of Colorblindness

For all of the inconveniences colorblindness introduces—and there are plenty—it does come with a few surprising advantages. None of them will help you get the “Best Dressed” award in your high school yearbooks, but they do make for some interesting twists on how the world is perceived.

One of the most frequently cited benefits is the occasional ability to spot things that others miss. Camouflage, for example, is designed to blend colors together in a way that fools people with typical color vision. It relies heavily on the brain being distracted by those color cues.

Colorblind individuals, particularly those with red-green color vision deficiency, are less influenced by those color differences. Instead, they tend to rely more on contrast, texture, and pattern. The result is that camouflage can sometimes appear less convincing—more like a suspicious patch of shapes than a seamless part of the environment.

This does not turn anyone into a one-person search-and-rescue team, but it does mean that, under the right conditions, a colorblind observer might notice outlines or irregularities that others overlook. In a world increasingly obsessed with blending in, there is something to be said for being harder to fool.

There is also evidence that people with colorblindness can be better at seeing through certain visual illusions or distractions that depend on color contrast. When color is removed as a reliable signal, the brain adapts by paying closer attention to other details—brightness, movement, and structure.

In some contexts, this can translate into sharper pattern recognition. A colorblind person tends to have an advantage when putting together a jigsaw puzzle, because the focus shifts from the colors on the pieces to the shapes themselves. It is less about seeing more, and more about seeing differently, which occasionally turns out to be exactly what is needed.

The Advantage of Not Trusting Your Eyes Too Much

Perhaps the most underrated advantage is perspective. People with colorblindness grow up navigating a world that does not quite match the instructions. They learn early that perception is not universal, that what seems obvious to one person may be anything but to another.

This lesson does not stay confined to crayons and coloring books. It follows them into adulthood, quietly shaping how they approach the world. When you have spent years discovering that your version of “obvious” does not always align with everyone else’s, you develop a healthy skepticism toward certainty. You ask questions. You double-check assumptions. You become less impressed by confident declarations and more interested in whether those declarations survive a second look.

It also tends to produce a certain flexibility in thinking. If something as fundamental as color can be experienced differently, then it stands to reason that other things—opinions, interpretations, perspectives—might be just as variable. That realization can make a person more patient, more curious, and occasionally more tolerant of the fact that other people are, in their own way, also trying to make sense of a slightly confusing world.

And, of course, there is the practical side. Years of navigating color-coded systems that may or may not cooperate tends to produce individuals who are resourceful, observant, and quietly inventive. They find workarounds. They notice patterns. They rely on context. In short, they adapt—often without anyone realizing how much adaptation is taking place.

All of which is a long way of saying that while colorblindness may complicate wardrobe decisions, it also has a way of producing people who are unusually good at recognizing that reality is not always as straightforward as it appears. Even if it occasionally still insists on presenting itself in what looks suspiciously like a radioactive orange dog.

The Train Wreck That Made Everyone Take Color Seriously

In the 19th century, colorblindness went from being a curious personal quirk to a matter of public safety, thanks to a train accident in Sweden that had an unfortunate lesson built into it. A railway signal was misinterpreted, and the resulting crash raised an uncomfortable question: what happens when a system depends entirely on color, and not everyone sees those colors the same way?

At the time, rail systems relied heavily on colored signals—typically red for stop and green or white for go. This worked perfectly well, provided that everyone involved in operating the trains perceived those colors in the same way. As it turned out, that assumption was doing quite a bit of heavy lifting.

The incident prompted investigations that led to a growing awareness that color vision deficiency was not just an oddity but a potential hazard in professions where color-coded signals were critical. The idea that someone could be making life-and-death decisions based on colors they could not reliably distinguish was, understandably, not reassuring.

In response, standardized color vision testing began to emerge, particularly for railway workers and later for other professions such as maritime navigation and aviation. Tests were designed to identify individuals who might struggle with color-based signals, often using colored lights or patterned plates to reveal deficiencies.

The result was one of the earliest examples of occupational screening based on sensory ability. It also served as a reminder—one that history repeats with impressive consistency—that safety regulations are often written in the aftermath of something going very, very wrong.

The Philosophical Question Nobody Asked (But We’re Asking Anyway)

Colorblindness raises a quietly unsettling question: who gets to define what “normal” color vision is?

Color is not an inherent property of objects. It is a perception created by the brain in response to light. In that sense, everyone is already living in a slightly customized version of reality.

Colorblind individuals are not seeing the world incorrectly. They are simply seeing it differently, like someone watching the same movie with a slightly altered color filter.

Everyone else just happens to agree on what to call the colors.

A Rare Moment of Practical Advice

For designers, presenters, and anyone who has ever created a chart, there is a simple rule: do not rely on color alone.

Use labels. Use patterns. Use contrast. If your entire message collapses when someone cannot distinguish red from green, the problem is not the viewer. It is the design.

For everyone else, a small shift in awareness goes a long way. Instead of saying, “grab the red one,” consider adding a little more detail. Shape, position, and context are remarkably helpful.

Closing Thoughts: The World Is Not Actually Color-Coded for You

Colorblindness is not a flaw so much as a variation—one that reveals how much of our world is built on assumptions we rarely question.

For those who experience it, the world is not less vibrant. It is simply arranged differently, like a familiar song played in a slightly unexpected key.

And for everyone else, it serves as a gentle reminder that not everyone downloaded the same visual settings.

Also, if your friend insists that those two shirts match perfectly, he may not have bad fashion sense; perhaps he just sees the world differently.

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