Colour Blindness

[Kirstin]

Is anyone else having trouble picking out the lines, numbers and control circles on urban maps. Red against green is the problem (which is the normal deficiency for colour blindness that a significant proportion of the male population suffer from).
Recently at Sheffield I struggled in the housing scheme during the prologue (I even managed to navigate to the wrong control at the butterfly). Last weekend at Craigmillar I again had trouble seeing the control circles and numbers in the housing scheme and still cannot read some of them sitting in the house.
I can remember taking part in a survey at the 6 days several years ago on colour blindness and colours on orienteering maps but cannot recall an outcome.
This is now a far bigger problem with the increasing number of urban events where circles and numbers are regularly in green areas.

Ian

[seabird]

In Ocad Purple is usually set at 100% Magenta, which seems to cause diffculty for the colour blind.

If it is changed to 20% Cyan 100% Magenta, using most printers this will result in a more readable map for the colour blind, although some other competitors seem to find a loss of clarity.

[epocian]

Is anyone else having trouble picking out the lines, numbers and control circles on urban maps. Red against green is the problem (which is the normal deficiency for colour blindness that a significant proportion of the male population suffer from).
Recently at Sheffield I struggled in the housing scheme during the prologue (I even managed to navigate to the wrong control at the butterfly)

I had trouble at Sheffield and said so on the Sheffield city race thread and received this reply

You are quite right about the overprint colour. Unfortunately there was a technical issue too close to the event for the event team to correct with the result that the maps had to be printed direct from Condes rather than from OCAD. We always print from OCAD if at all possible as we find there is greater control over getting the overprint colour right (e.g. Oxford). Sorry if it caused you a problem.

[andypat]

Would it be difficult to prepare separate maps for pre-entered competitors who request a suitable overprint?
Prior to the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, people in wheelchairs were regualrly denied access to services and now thats much improved (although not resolved). Maybe in 20 years time O maps for people with red/green colour blindness will be the norm?

[Gross]

Would it be difficult to prepare separate maps for pre-entered competitors who request a suitable overprint?

Been done since laser printing first came in... maybe not on a large scale. One of the GB Potential Squad members was colour blind & used to get special maps prepared for training & test races.

So no reason it couldn't be done now....

[Kirstin]

I know some overprints are better than others for me but I wouldn't think it was impossible to come up with a colour that works for all.
The biggest problem is over the olive green which is probably a fairly new issue.
It may be worth having a different overprint for urban events (what about dark blue, it would help everyone pick the print out even through the buildings in urban areas).

Ian

[ba-ba]

Chasers turned green into grey on the Maize Maze map for those suffering from RG colourblindness, but that only worked because there were only really 2 colours on the map. Prehaps on urban maps anything impassable could be marked as black (as opposed to green for shruberies) - maybe with something like a veg change edging to distinguise between buildings/foliage - but it could be very difficult to distinguish at high speed.

We should print everything in greyscale - much more challenging