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The color statistic that’s been wrong for 80 years
A widely cited color perception statistic has gone unchallenged for decades despite lacking scientific verification
The estimate everyone repeated and nobody verified …
Full Product UX article at UX Collective »
Why this article matters to UX professionals:
This article matters to UX and product designers because color accessibility and perception directly impact design decisions, interface usability, and inclusive design practices. Designers frequently rely on published statistics about color blindness prevalence, color contrast requirements, and user perception to inform palette selection, WCAG compliance strategies, and accessibility testing. When foundational data turns out to be unverified or inaccurate, it can lead teams to prioritize the wrong accessibility concerns or misallocate resources in user research. Understanding the origins and reliability of commonly cited design statistics helps practitioners build more evidence-based design systems and makes them more discerning consumers of design research. This article encourages designers to verify claims in design literature rather than perpetuating assumptions, ultimately strengthening the rigor of human-centered design practice. For product teams making color-dependent UX decisions, the ability to distinguish between verified data and repeated claims becomes essential to creating genuinely accessible and usable interfaces.
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