Color Blind Palette Generator

Why Color Blind Friendly Palettes Matter

Creating accessible color palettes is essential for inclusive design. Approximately 8% of men and 0.5% of women worldwide experience some form of color vision deficiency, making it crucial for designers to consider color blindness when choosing palettes for websites, applications, and visual content.

A well-designed color blind palette ensures that information conveyed through color remains accessible to everyone. This is particularly important in data visualization, user interfaces, and educational materials where color often carries meaning. By testing your palette against different types of color blindness, you can identify potential issues before they affect your users.

How This Tool Helps Designers

Our color blind palette generator provides comprehensive testing across four major types of color vision deficiency: protanopia (red-blind), deuteranopia (green-blind), tritanopia (blue-blind), and achromatopsia (total color blindness). The live simulation feature lets you see exactly how your palette appears to users with different types of color blindness, while the contrast checker ensures your colors meet WCAG accessibility standards.

The tool also includes daltonization correction, which suggests adjusted colors that improve distinguishability for color blind users while maintaining your design intent. With context previews showing your palette in real UI components, you can validate your choices before implementation.

Tips for Choosing Accessible Palettes

Start with high contrast ratios between adjacent colors in your palette. Aim for a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text to meet WCAG AA standards. Use our accessible palette generator to create color combinations optimized for all color vision types. Consider using patterns, textures, or labels alongside color to convey information, ensuring your design remains functional even without color perception.

Test your palette across all provided color blindness simulations before finalizing your design. Lock colors you want to keep and regenerate others until you achieve a palette that works universally. Export your validated palette in multiple formats for easy integration into your design workflow and development process.

Key Features of Our Palette Generator

•Generate accessible palettes automatically or customize manually with color pickers
•Lock individual colors while regenerating others for flexible palette creation
•Real-time simulation for protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia, and achromatopsia
•WCAG contrast validation with pass/fail indicators for AA and AAA compliance
•Context previews showing your colors in buttons, cards, charts, and text layouts
•Export to HEX, CSS variables, Tailwind config, JSON, and PNG formats
•Curated preset palettes optimized for UI, data visualization, and high contrast needs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a color blind palette?

A color blind palette is a carefully selected set of colors designed to remain distinguishable for people with various types of color vision deficiency. These palettes ensure that information conveyed through color is accessible to users with protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia, or achromatopsia.

How do I create an accessible color palette?

Use our generator to create palettes with sufficient contrast ratios, test them across different color blindness types, and ensure they meet WCAG accessibility standards. Start by choosing your palette size, then either generate an accessible palette automatically or customize colors manually. Lock colors you want to keep and test the results using our simulation and contrast checking tools.

What is WCAG contrast compliance?

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) contrast compliance ensures text and UI elements have sufficient contrast for readability. Level AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Level AAA has stricter requirements of 7:1 for normal text and 4.5:1 for large text. Our tool automatically checks all these requirements.

What is daltonization correction?

Daltonization is a technique that adjusts colors to make them more distinguishable for people with color blindness. Our tool shows daltonized versions of your palette, suggesting corrected colors that improve visibility while maintaining your design intent. This helps you understand how to optimize your palette for maximum accessibility.

Can I export my palette for use in design tools?

Yes! You can export your validated palette in multiple formats including HEX list, CSS variables, Tailwind config snippets, JSON, and PNG swatch images. Simply navigate to the Export tab and choose your preferred format. All exports are generated instantly and can be copied to your clipboard or downloaded.

How accurate are the color blindness simulations?

Our simulations use scientifically accurate color transformation matrices based on peer-reviewed research. The algorithms model the physiological differences in color perception for different types of color vision deficiency, providing realistic representations of how your palette appears to users with protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia, or achromatopsia.

What are the preset palettes?

Preset palettes are curated color combinations optimized for specific use cases like UI applications, data visualization, high contrast interfaces, buttons, and more. Each preset has been tested for accessibility and provides a quick starting point for your design. You can select any preset and then customize individual colors to match your brand.

Why should I lock colors in my palette?

Locking colors allows you to preserve specific brand colors or colors you're satisfied with while regenerating the rest of your palette. This is useful when you have mandatory brand colors but need to fill out the rest of your palette with accessible complementary colors. Simply click the lock icon on any color to protect it from regeneration.

Preset Palettes