When England won the FIFA World Cup for the first and only time in 1966, every England fan who watched the final of the tournament on TV in England saw the game in black and white.
But not being able to watch sports on TV in full colour, to help easily distinguish between different teams, people and objects, may seem unimaginable to some people in 2018.
And it’s important to acknowledge there are around 2.7 million people in the UK who have a different experience of the colours they see whilst watching and playing sports like football due to colour blindness.
Colour vision deficiency, or CVD, is better known as colour blindness and around the world it is more common amongst men (around 1 in 12, or 8 percent), than women (around 1 in 200). In the UK about 4.5% of the population are colour blind, most of whom are men, according to the Colour Blind Awareness Association.
Most people who are colour blind can’t fully see red, green or blue light. There are different types of colour blindness and the most common type is red/green colour blind. This makes it difficult for people to identify some shades of greens from browns, or browns from reds, or blues from purples.
People who are colour blind who play and watch sports may face a range of difficulties. These span from not clearly understanding which team is playing in which kit, to not being able to work out which button on the TV remote to press to access alternative match commentary.
If we look at football in England, last year The FA published guidance notes on colour blindness to raise awareness of its impact on football. The guidance explains colour blindness and offers ways to help people who are colour blind.
The guidance also offers information and advice about design issues, including web design issues, such as that you should never represent information by just using colour/s.
Recite Me’s web accessibility tool can help people with colour-blindness to access written website content by letting them change the font colour and background colour contrast so they can easily see and read the text. Very handy if you want to read a match report on your favourite football team’s website!
100’s of organisations already use Recite Me to make their websites more accessible for people with disabilities – book your free demo now or call on 0191 4328092 to find out more.
