My Color Blind Check app will soon be released on the official android play market. I’m not sending you any test releases anymore but stay tuned and download the app, as soon as it is launched. I’ll definitely write about it on color-blindness.com, so stay tuned and register for the newsletter.

I few month back I wrote about my new color vision deficiency test “Color Blind Check” which I’m developing for Android smartphones and tablets. The first tests and impressions were very promising and I even posted a little video of it in my article Early Preview of Color Blind Check App.

Unfortunately I had to rewrite the most part of the test, as the graphics needed to be smoother and more enhancable. Therefore it took quite a while until I had my newest version ready, ready for you, the readers who are eager to learn more about it and ready to be tested.

What I would like to offer you:

• If you have an Android Smartphone…
• …which runs on Android 4.0 or higher…
• …and feel ok with a very unpolished version…
• …and would like to share your check results with me…
• …then you are happily invited to contact me and ask for the APK.

Now, this is not for everyone, I know. My Color Blind Check app is not yet released, so you need to do some tweaks to get it up and running. Also if you use the app—which is not finished at all—you’ll be able to do the test. Anyway, the timing is not correctly shown, you need to be very patient if you have some form of color vision deficiency, there are many things not working yet, you won’t get any results (only through me) and so on.

But, you’ll be one of the first people to have a look at it and try it out, help me to further develop my app and maybe be part of the development of a major color vision deficiency color blindness test of the future.

This diagram shows you just some outcomes of the test itself. It’s built on four different test color areas. This shows the reaction time of the third color of a handful of test runs from different persons.

You can see that some people (two severely red-blind guys) have huge peaks. This exactly matches with the theory of color vision deficiency confusion lines. You can also see the sharply edged lines: the left one shows the peak for deutan deficiencies, the right for protan deficiencies. People with no color vision deficiency don’t show any particular peaks at all.

What I need now is a lot more test data. Data from non-colorblind people but also test data from different people which have different forms of color vision deficiencies. Only with this data available, I’ll be able to show if my test works at all or not.

So, if you would like to help me out, just contact me and ask for the APK v0.1 of my new “Color Blind Check”.

Step by step guide

1. Get the APK from me by email.
2. Change your settings to allow apps from unknown sources to be installed on your Android 4 smartphone: Settings -> Security -> Check: Unknown Sources
3. Open the attachment on your smartphone. You’ll be asked, if you would like to install it.
4. Find the app “Color Blind Check” and start it.
5. Do the test in good light conditions (maybe do a first dry run).
6. Share your result by email with me by simply pushing the share button, selecting email and filling out your name, age and if you know, your type of color vision deficiency.
7. That’s it. Thanks.

If you send me you’re test data, I’ll put it into my spreadsheet and have a look, what you’re check results look like. If possible, I’ll get back to you and report you, what type of color vision deficiency you’re suffering from according to the test results you sent me, and maybe also how severe your cvd really is.

Thanks already in advance to all who are willing to try this new test getting up and running. – Daniel from Colblindor.

Right now I’m working on a Color Blindness Test App for Android devices. I know, it’s really in a very very early stage of development, but the results of the already working part of this App are looking very promising.

Sorry for the bad quality and maybe you won’t even see the color-shifted spots. But the video should only give you a feeling on what this color blindness check is all about and how it could look like in the future.

The results are looking promising, because if I take the test as is, I can’t see the colored parts in the test, when they move along the protan confusion line. Or in other words: Most of the time I can spot the parts, which are slowly changing color into a certain color-direction, as fast as my non-colorblind kids. But as soon as the color shift is along my area of color blindness, I suddenly can’t spot it anymore (“Dad, can’t you see that! :-) “).

The tests still needs a huge amount of work. But I hope one time I can release it as a real, working color blindness test which gives you some really good results concerning your type of color vision deficiency as well as the severity of it.

I just released one of the oldest, definitely the most well known and definitely by far the most widely used color blindness test on earth: Ishihara 38 Plates CVD Test.

Unfortunately this test is not as good as one would think of:

• The original version detects just forms of red-green color blindness.
• The test is to selective: Even people with normal color vision may fail.
• It is based on a printed booklet. One has to be very careful with the handling.
• Often even eye doctors don’t know how to handle it correctly…

The original test is distributed as printed booklet and it started its tour around the world from Japan early last century. Dr. Shinobu Ishihara published the 38 plates as first version of his test, which is still known under the name Ishihara plates test. After the first test he also released a shorter 24 and even a quick 14 plate version of it.

The online version of this test is not as good as it could be. The scanning of the printed plates altered the colors and therefore the result is not as meanigful as with some other tests which you can find in my arrangement of color blindness tests.

When I take the test myself, I can see some numbers in some of the plates, but a lot of them are just a bunch of dots for me. If my children watch me doing so they always have to giggle, as they can see all the numbers and lines in all of the plates. Of course I know, I’m strongly red-blind and have quite some issues with colors. But in some plates I can’t see the slightes hint of a number! This makes me really think, as my kids easily spot all of them—even if my daughter just recently learned the numbers at all.

Try the Online Ishihara 38 Plates Edition Color Blindness Test yourself and see how you will perform—or not. With this online version of the test it is even possible to share your result with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or by Email and let them also try the test themselves.

Dr Shinobu Ishihara introduced in 1917—almost 100 years ago—the most well known color blindness test. Each of his tests consists of a set of colored dotted plates, each of them showing either a number or a path. Since then this is the most widely used color vision deficiency test and still used by most optometrists and ophthalmologists all around the world.

There are other color blindness tests available, but none of them is as famous as the Ishihara plates. It is also well known, that even people with normal color vision sometimes struggle with this test. But nevertheless this plates are still in use in the absence of any better and still affordable color vision test.

Hereafter the 38 Ishihara Plates will be shown. If you would like to take an online test, please visit my collection of Online Color Blindness Tests.

Personal comment: I believe that this scanned plates have some shifts in color. They don’t really consist of the same colors as the original versions. With these plates I would suffer from deuteranomly as any other test shows that I’m suffering from protanomaly.

There exist four different types of plates:

• Vanishing design: Only people with good color vision can see the sign. If you are colorblind you won’t see anything.
• Transformation design: Color blind people will see a different sign than people with no color vision handicap.
• Hidden digit design: Only colorblind people are able to spot the sign. If you have perfect color vision, you won’t be able to see it.
• Classification design: This is used to differentiate between red- and green-blind persons. The vanishing design is used on either side of the plate, one side for deutan defects an the other for protans.

Try your best! If you can see all of them you are definitely color abnormal, as some of them should only be seen by colorblind people and others only by non-colorblind ones :-)

A few days ago I released the F-M 100 Hue Color Vision Deficiency Test on Colblindor. Since then many people have taken the test which makes it possible to give you some added value on the test.

From today on you can also compare your result with “the rest of the world”. In the last tab of the test you will be able to see two diagrams: the first shows you the overall contribution of the different types. Your will be shown with an orange circle.

The second diagram below is all about the severity. Again your total error score is highlighted with an orange bar. This diagram shows you how others did in this test and if you are on the “better” or “not that good” side when it comes to see colors.

I hope you enjoy this added value and of course the whole F-M 100 Hue Test. If you have any questions or further suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Do you ever wanted to test your color vision with one of the most famous color blindness tests available? Try out the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Color Blindness Test (F-M 100 Hue Test) and see how good you are in color ordering.

This test is a very typical arrangement or also called hue disrimination test. It is based on 88 distinct hues (and not 100 as the name suggests) which are mixed randomly in four batches of 22 plates. Your task is to order them in a way that the colors appear to change gradually in steps from left to right. When you are finished a calculation can be done based on the misplacements of the plates.

On the left side you can see a sample error score diagram. Each plate error score is shown and an overall total error score (TES) will be calculated. Based on this information the severity and type of your color vision deficiency can be deduced.

Unfortunately until now online color blindness tests are not that reliable. I am quite strongly red blind, which is not always shown by the test result. And my wife did the test and got quite a high TES—but she is definitely not color blind! This can be caused by ambient light conditions, different monitor settings and the setup of RGB color space. Hopefully we’ll soon get some sort of computer based color vision test which can also guarantee some reliable results.

You can restart the test as many times as you like. You can also compare your results with “the rest of the world” and wou will get some detailed diagrams of your test data.

The F-M 100 Hue Test is the third color blindness test which you can try out right here on Colblindor. Stay tuned for more color blindness tests and tools in the future and subscribe to my feed or email newsletter.

After almost 100 years since Dr Shinobu Ishihara published his first color blindness test based on pseudoisochromatic plates, we are definitely looking into a new area of color vision testing. Based on the very promising tests of Jay Neitz and his team, where colorblind monkeys started to disinguish certain colors, the company Genevolve is planning to put a genetic color blindness test on the market by the end of 2011.

The Eyedox genetic test for color blindness doesn’t need any pictures or complicated apparatus, but just a few cells from the inner cheek from where your DNA can be extracted from. This makes the test also available for young toddlers and the results can’t be influenced by misunderstanding, light conditions or any other external factors.

Many colorblind people all around the world are looking forward to get such a scientific, precise and fool-prove possibility to test their color blindness. As there are many different tests around these days, and even some online possibilities to test your color vision, you are never really 100% sure if the results tell you the truth. With a genetic test at hand a new reliable option is available. On option which can make you feel more sure to know your real grade of color vision.

Eyedox Color Blindness Diagnosis

If you take an Eyedox color vision deficiency test, not only your cvd type will be diagnosed but also the severity of it. In detail this means:

• CVD Type: The test is diagnosing anomalous trichromacy including the different subtypes deuteranomaly (green-weak) and protanomaly (red-weak) and also dichromacy with the subtypes deuteranopia (green-blind) and protanopia (red-blind). This means any type of red-green color blindness is diagnosed in detail.
• Severity: The severity of your color vision deficiency is shown on a scale from 1 to 100 and it is also assigned to one of the degrees very mild, mild, medium, strong or very strong.

Personally I think the strength of the Eyedox test will be the differentiation between a dichromacy and an anomalous trichromacy and a detailed severity analysis of your color blindness. On the other side we have the weakness of the test, that tritanomaly and tritanopia (blue-yellow color blindness) can not be tested with it.

Genetic Treatment of Color Blindness

Many people are not only looking for an accurate cvd test but also a possibility to treat their deficiency and get rid of it. Especially all the colorblind pilot, police officer, and firefighter aspirants, who are rejected because of their visual handicap. Genevolve did not only invest into a genetic color vision test, but is also looking into the development of a therapy to treat color blindness. Hereafter you can find a possible timeline for this next huge step forward in scientific research of color vision:

1. In the year 2009 some squirrel monkeys were cured of their color blindness by genetic therapy.
2. In the same year Genevolve was founded, a “life sciences company which researches, designs and commercializes non-invasive molecular diagnostic assays and treatments for clinical applications for the color vision industry”.
3. In 2010 a Survey on Gene Therapy for Red-Green Color Blindness was done.
4. In 2011 Genevolve announces Eyedox, a genetic color blindness test which is based on a non-invasive molecular diagnostics.
5. Also in 2011 the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) requires further animal tests which will require maybe another one to two years of testing.
6. If everything runs smoothly, after that for the first time a handful of selected red-green colorblind people will get a genetic treatment (those are already preselected and nobody can apply for this first test group!)
7. If they achieve success with the first group, more test subjects will be needed to broaden the treatment and get more detailed test results. If you like to, you can enroll for this second phase. But be aware, this can take another one to three years until those test will get started.

Some Thoughts

I really think it is great work what they are all doing. We will all learn a lot more about our color vision and maybe in the future, some people can even cure their color vision deficiency. But I also think we should ask ourselves, if we really need a genetic treatment just to see some more colors in our life or to get a possibility for the job of our dreams. Do we have to alter our genes for that? What else happens to a human body if we do it? How far shall and can we go when it comes to the innermost of every thing alive?

Anyway. Genevolve, we are all eager to learn more about your next steps and your success stories of treating color blindness and we are looking forward to learn more about your genetic color blindness test as soon as it is available.

Pseudoisochromatic plates are the most well known type of color blindness test. The dotted pictures are often referred to as Ishihara plates, becuase Dr. Ishihara developed the first set of such plates which were used all around the world to test for color vision deficiency.

There are many different versions and varieties of pseudoisochromatic plates tests available. Usually they are used as printed tests because it is crucial to get the colors right. Slight changes of the used colors can alter the result and would make a test unreliable. This is also the reason why such tests are usually not used online as display setting, different monitors and surrounding light change the perception of color and therefore the results can’t be trusted on.

Dr. Terrace L. Waggoner, a well known optometrist when it comes to color blindness, developed one of the best known Ishihara plates tests. He made some special research when it comes to pediactric color vision tests and produced Color Vision Testing Made Easy.

His son T.J. Waggoner took now a new way and made some of the pseudoisochromatic plates available as online test. There are two different test sets: One consisting of numbers and a pediactric test consisting of signs. Everybody can take those tests for a small fee. You will find them at Testing Color Vision and don’t forget to use the Colblindor discount code «colblindor» to get 20% off.

The Pros
It’s nice to have a very good Ishihara plates test available online. Of course, you can find many others but usually those are put together as a set of scanned pictures which results in much lower quality and reliability.

I took the test twice, tried to cheat, but couldn’t spot any of the numbers. The quality of the images is really good.

The Cons
There is still no study which could tell us more about the validity and reliability of online color vision tests with uncalibrated computer monitors. I heard they are working on it and I’m looking forward to it. But already now I’m quite sure that an online color blindness test of high quality can be as good as a visit to an eye specialist.

The second thing which I don’t like that much is the result of the test. It just says if you are color blind or not but doesn’t tell anything about the severity. This is something people really are looking for and I would strongly suggest to include this in a future release.

Visit the online pseudoisochromatic plates test by Terrace L. Waggoner at Testing Color Vision (Colblindor discount code: «colblindor») and tell me what you think about it.