Mobile services supporting color vision deficiency

This paper presents an application for smartphones, which supports people with color vision deficiency (CVD). Following a general introduction we discuss briefly relevant aspects explaining the causes and types of this disease. A variety of test procedures have been developed, allowing to diagnose different categories and levels of CVD. As we propose a new mobile solution to support people with and without CVD, we first summarize related work with special attention to mobile applications. People suffering from color vision deficiency are restricted in observing or acting correctly in many daily life situations, of which some are described. Next we propose our superior and more advanced Android smartphone solution which fulfills three purposes: (a) it allows to easily diagnose red/green and blue/yellow color deficiency (b) it supports people suffering from CVD by listing colors, which normally would not be recognizable as soon as the smartphone camera is directed towards any object (c) it provides a simulation mode, which presents any object to people without CVD the way people suffering from CVD would see them. The paper shows results of ongoing research, following the design research paradigm. Therefore only preliminary design considerations will be discussed. The paper concludes with some ideas on future work, which will be considered for the next research cycle.