Source: Microsoft

Colorblindness affects a significant number of people, most often as an inability to distinguish between red and green, or seeing red and green differently. When creating presentations, it’s important to choose elements that increase visual contrast so viewers who cannot rely on color distinction can still understand what they’re seeing. Some things you can do when building a slide deck include:

  • Avoid using orange, red, and green in your template and text.
  • Use texture in graphs, instead of color, to highlight points of interest.
  • Circle or use animation to highlight information, rather than relying on laser pointers or color.
  • Keep the overall contrast in your presentation high.

To get an idea of how a person who is colorblind will see your presentation, you can check the contrast by doing the following:

On a PC in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

  1. On the View tab, in the Color/Grayscale group, click Grayscale.
  2. On the Grayscale tab, click Grayscale to see what slides look like when flattened to just their level of contrast.

On a Mac in Microsoft PowerPoint 2011, you cannot preview in Greyscale, however, you can set your presentation’ theme colors to greyscale.

  1. On the Themes tab, in the Theme Options group, click Colors, then select Greyscale.

Are you colorblind and creating a presentation? Review “Corrective lenses for the colorblind” to learn how you can select colors in PowerPoint, even if you have trouble distinguishing them from each other.