Color-Blind Mode: Pubg Mobile Leading the Way to Inclusivity, Why Isn’t E-commerce Keeping Pace?

Source: Colormax.org

In today’s worlds world, where e-Commerce is so deeply integrated into our lives, it has become even more important to make sure all aspects are being taken into consideration while catering to the needs of the customers. But presently, the e-Commerce platforms are designed in a way that they cannot be conveniently used by colorblind people. Color blindness, also known as a color deficiency, occurs when you cannot see colors in the normal way.

Color blindness often happens when a person is unable to distinguish between certain colors. Generally, when we talk about color blindness, it’s being referred to the most common types of red-green blindness, namely Protan-type and Deutan-type, yellow-green blindness. Tritan type color-blindness, which is blue-yellow color-blindness, is usually caused due to eye aging and is rarely acquired from birth. In 2020, PubG, a very popular mobile game, introduced a new update with color-blind mode.

In an interview, Eric Cleaver, Senior Community Manager at PubG Mobile said, “When we started looking into color-blindness, what we quickly discovered was that it’s not a single problem, but many types of color vision deficiencies that impact our players in a wide variety of ways. With research, we realized the full scope of how many people were potentially impacted by this issue and we wanted to do a much more comprehensive pass on areas of our game that could be creating difficulties for our players.

Color blindness affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world, more than 300 million people with color blindness worldwide. With over 600 million global downloads of PUBG MOBILE, this means that as many as 18 million members of our community could be at a disadvantage while playing.

So, we got Color-blind assist on the schedule and this update is the result!” Approximately 40 million people in India suffer from complete or partial color-blindness out of which 20 million people are youth who share the same fashion goals and want to look trendier. Due to lack of proper perception of colors, fashion is many-a-times limited for colorblind people.

Either they are dependent on others for choosing an outfit for them or even if they try to do it by themselves by various features available it doesn't usually go as planned. As color vision deficiencies affect men (1 in 12 men) substantially more than women, (1 in 200 women). Men’s fashion is a domain where attention to color choices is more pivotal as the color of the garment plays an eminent role while shopping for an outfit.

One of the most common displeasures from people with acquitted with color vision deficiencies is that they may have difficulty understanding the true color of a  garment and they’ll have to ask for a favor from another person to confirm the color for them. While it’s more convenient to shop online than in a physical store, there are still accessibility issues that are being overlooked by shopping websites.

The problem with the Color-correction mode usually available on phones is the technology that is not meant to correct colors, it’s meant to change them to colors you can see so that you can differentiate them more clearly from one another. The screen shows highly saturated colors, appears tinted, or has a color cast.

The existing color-blindness assistance apps usually offer naming and identification of the colors or works on adjusting the contrast and saturation or highlighting the pixels. They don’t offer much help for a color-blind person who wants to shop online. Debunking the effectiveness of EnChroma glasses for colorblind people,  an article published in Optics Express, researchers concluded that the glasses are designed to improve the everyday experience of color vision.

They are devices for the enhancement of color discrimination in persons with color blindness; they are not a cure for color blindness. These glasses are similar to those used for hunting. The effect of using the EnChroma glasses is similar to that achieved with glasses designed for specific activities (shooting, hunting, low eyesight, etc.), where the use of colored glasses helps to better perceive certain stimuli thanks to an increased contrast with the surroundings.

It is high time for the e-commerce players to realize that color-blindness impacts billions of consumers worldwide. Introducing a cure to this problem is the need of the hour. Addressing this issue and improving accessibility to the shopping experience would increase customer engagement as it would make the platform more innovative and interactive.

Written by Priyal Kaka