“It feels like colours play tricks on me, so I stop trusting my own eyes.”
Arjun buys only blue and black clothes. He labels his colour pencils. He memorises hex codes. He skipped colour theory class.
None of that shows up as a “disability” in a classroom. It shows up as a student who seems slow, double-checks everything, and won't ask for help — because asking means admitting it.
Common. Under-diagnosed. Discovered late.
Screening in Indian schools is rare, so most people find out between Class 10 and college — exactly when diagrams, charts, lab work and UI tasks get serious. Existing tools are either medical (Ishihara books), desktop-only (Color Oracle), or complex browser plugins.
Here's what a red/green status chip looks like to Arjun.
Colour only, no labels — the way many status chips, heatmaps and link states actually ship. Turn on deuteranopia and try telling them apart.
The emotional curve of one ordinary task.
“Is this brown or green?” · “I don't know my colours.”
“People will think I'm careless.” · “Why can't I trust my eyes?”
Embarrassed · left out · insecure about design skills · slow
Three features. One rule: never colour alone.
How should Prism tell Arjun what colour he's looking at?
Answer the next question: “what goes with it?”
Many users don't know they have CVD. What earns the third feature slot?
Arrange the tiles from first to last. Red–green confusion shows up as swaps in the middle — the user sees it themselves, privately.
What the tester said — and what changed.
One participant with CVD completed three tasks: detect a colour, enable a screen filter, play the hue game.
They appreciated a UI that didn't lean on colour, and the illustration on the home screen. They asked for more lighting guidance — and for dark mode, because black-on-white strained their eyes.
Most telling: they said they felt empowered, not embarrassed. That was the real brief.
- Dark mode as default option
- Back and help buttons more prominent in Camera Mode
- Voice output for colour names
- Real-time contrast warnings
- More pattern variations
- Future: browser extension · Google Lens integration
Honest limit: one participant. The direction is validated; the details need a proper round with 5+ users across CVD types.