Seeing Through the Eyes of the Color-Blind Shopper

• Need for and Right to Have Understandable Consumer Information
• Designing packages
• Printing instructions and warnings
• Developing advertisements
• Constructing retail shopping displays, lighting, and layouts

Vulnerable Consumers

• A susceptibility to injury or to being taken advantage of by another person
• Marketers should offer products and services that are safe and fit for their intended uses (AMA Code of Ethics)
• If product warnings cannot be seen and/or processed; is the product unsafe?

Color-Blind Consumers

• Are color cues processed and interpreted as intended?
• The study attempts to determine the range of problem areas related to products, packaging, and advertising experienced by color-blind informants, using their input to generate recommendations for public policy

How Prevalent is Color-Blindness?

• Approximately 10 percent of the white males in the United States
• About 19 million persons in the United States are color-blind or color-deficient
• Monochromatism:  total color blindness, all hues perceived as variations of gray
• Dichromatism:  partial color blindness, inability to differentiate between greens and reds

Color Meanings are Learned

• Warmth vs.. cold
• Symbols like flags; colors associated with national pride
• Culturally-linked meanings:  black vs.. white associated with death, marriage
• The ball is green:
• green is good
• green is bad
• green just does not matter

 Color blind persons are expected to:

• Report problems related to products for which color is an important attribute
• Report problems in which they are required to match the colors of products.
• “Miss” color-related information in advertising.
• “Miss” color-related information on packaging
• Encounter resistance and frustration in the store setting

Describing One’s Color-Blindness

• Most common confusion with red and green
• Light colors of red/green appear as pale gray or pale blue
• Can’t tell the difference between red and green
• Some shades of green and some shades of brown appear to look the same

Color-Blindness Does not Mean the Absence of Color

“I’ve been told that I am green-brown color blind.  I also have trouble distinguishing some shades of blue or purple. Some shades of green and some shades of brown appear to look the same. Also some shades of blue and purple are difficult to distinguish.  I can tell there is a color, I’m must not always sure what it is.”
 

A Common Set of Worries

• Products:  clothing, home decorations, paint, appliances, home improvement
• Matching is outside the realm of accurate information processing for  many color-blind individuals
• Key cues in ads are missed
• Catalogs may depend on selection from color blocks

Impaired Color Perception can Affect In-Store Information Processing

• Lighting and Décor affect color perception
• Dark paneling and subdued lighting can distort color perception
• “All dark products look the same against dark backgrounds”
• “Color distortion”
• “The brighter the light, the easier it is to distinguish different shades of color.”
• Print the color on the label

Color as a Perceptual Cue
Color as an Indicator of Quality and Appeal
Produce:  green lettuce, red apples
If contrast and lighting are poor, food in restaurants does not look appealing
 

Color Used to Convey Meaning
Does green mean “go”, or does the top light mean “go”?  Has the meaning changed?
Green on ATMs?
 

Color and Packaging Information
Can the shopper use color to determine the product inside?
Can the product color be distinguished from the package and from the label?
 

Packaging Can Work against Your Product
“The product was so brightly packaged, that when I was looking for it, it was lost to me among the myriad's of grays, and the shades of gray, that I could make out.”
 

Product Labeling and Warning

• Special warning stickers on medicines are placed on amber or dark brown containers - do these blend into the background? Could the colors be confused or reversed?
• “If a warning is in red on a green background, I’m helpless.  I had my wife read a label that I couldn’t because the colors blended.”
• Problems with info highlighted in red

Product Labeling and Warning

• Special warning stickers on medicines are placed on amber or dark brown containers - do these blend into the background? Could the colors be confused or reversed?
• “If a warning is in red on a green background, I’m helpless.  I had my wife read a label that I couldn’t because the colors blended.”
• Problems with info highlighted in red

If you could speak to the marketing industry today, what would you want them to know about color-blind consumers?
“Put color information on the product itself.”

“Have lighting in stores as close to daylight as possible.”

“Place color-related information in alphabetical order.”
 

And more . . .
“Print the name of the color on the label.”

Put warnings in black on white in capital letters! Don’t use colors for important informational reports.”

“Develop charts to tell what goes with what.”