Colour Blindness Test

I recently ran an experiment with my classmates and tutors to explore the percentage of colour blindness. On average it effects 1 in 12 (8%) of men and 1 in 200 (0.5%) of women but I wanted to take a sample myself.

I used The X Rite Colour Challenge and Hue Test
https://www.xrite.com/hue-test

The lower the score, the better the persons' ability to differentiate colour.
The higher the score, the more likely the person has colour blindness.

I sent the test link out to everyone on my course and received 12 responses.

There were 9 male responses and 3 female responses.

11 of the participants were aged 20 - 29, while only 1 was aged 40 - 49.

11 of the participants scored 0, while only 1 scored 8.

You would expect that the participant who scored 8 would be male and aged 40 - 49. This is due to colour blindness being more common in men, and often worsening later in life.

However the participant who scored 8 was actually female and aged 20 - 29.

From this sample we can see that even the highest scoring participant does not suffer with colour blindness. My sample does not reflect the global averages but there could be several reasons for this:

- I only tested a small group, the differences would be more pronounced on a larger scale. 

- The ratio of males to females tested were not evenly split.

- The ratio of age groups tested were not evenly split.

- Participants may have used different devices with varying size and colour depth.

- I have tested within a class that specialises in visual design. Had I tested people from various occupations, the results may have been very different.

Given the unusual spread of results and the lack of consistency with the known average, I believe this experiment was inaccurate. There were too many variables that could have swayed the result and I did not receive enough responses for my test to be comparable. I also had to discard three tests as the participants had not included their age or gender. This also limited the number of responses I could use.

This was still a fun test and sparked an interesting conversation about colour blindness with my peers who also found enjoyment in the competitive aspect of scoring their visual abilities.