Colour-blind friendly cartography
Maps are often problematic for people with colour vision deficiency - or colour blindness. Features of similar shades are hard to distinguish, making interpretation of the map confusing and difficult.
Recognising this, I created two custom mapping styles to be used on Ordnance Survey’s Open Zoomstack base map. One is suited to those with red-green colour blindness, and the other for those with blue-yellow colour blindness.
I was awarded the Government Geography Profession’s ‘Contributions to the Profession’ prize for this mapping work.
Read more about my work to create colour blind accessible map styles here.
Ordnance Survey ‘Standard’ basemap style
Basemap style for those with red-green colour blindness (Deuteranopia or Protanopia)
Basemap style for those with blue-yellow colour blindness (Tritanopia)
"I’m Red-Green CVD and I have struggled with some aspect of OS mapping so much so I use them (in GIS) in grey scale and rely on the bold primary colour symbology. The new styling here is fantastic and works well for me."
- Colour blind user on Twitter"One of my GCSE geographers is colour blind and struggles to read maps in exams. It’s so great to see that you are trying to help people access these vital things.”
- HEAD OF GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT on Twitter