Android Low Vision: Color Correction

Today, we're going to check out Android's Color Correction feature, which is helpful for those of us who have colorblindness or other color sensitivity.

With Color Correction, we can adjust the colors on our display so it's easier to tell certain colors apart. To turn this feature on, we'll first head over to our Settings app, which is right here on our home screen. Let's tap on Settings to open it.

Great. Now that our Settings app is open, let's find our Accessibility button in this list of options. We'll just move down the options. And here it is. We'll tap right here on Accessibility.

Now we're on the Accessibility screen, and let's look under our display heading for Color and Motion. This is where we're going to find our Color Correction button. If your phone doesn't have an option for Color and Motion, tap on Text and Display instead. Either way, let's tap the button.

Our next step is to find the Color Correction button. On the Color and Motion screen, it's right here at the top of the list. By default, this feature is turned off. Let's tap on the button to open it.

And before we turn it on, we'll explore the settings. Okay, now that we have this feature open, let's look at the options provided to change how colors look on the device. Depending on what we need, these settings can make items on the screen easier to see, or more comfortable to view. So, we'll scroll down below the Use Color correction button and we'll look at the different modes.

The first option is a red-green setting that says green weak. This setting adjusts colors for people who have reduced sensitivity to green light, which is the most common type of colorblindness.

The second option is an another red-green setting and it says red weak. This one makes adjustments for people with reduced sensitivity to red light.

Next, we have a blue-yellow setting, which adjusts for reduced sensitivity to blue light, and then we have a gray scale option, which will display everything in shades of gray for people with sensitivity to color. Let's scroll back up and select the first option. So, we'll tap on it here to select it.

Great, and now we'll scroll up to see what happens when we turn it on. Now we can see the test area of colors, and let's watch what happens when we touch the Use Color Correction toggle switch to turn it on.

There, the colors in the test section have changed. And as we'll see in a minute, this feature works throughout our entire device, including in media and images.

One more thing to mention about this feature is that it has the option to be added as a shortcut to the Accessibility button. Choosing this option allows us to quickly turn it on or off. For more information about the Accessibility button and menu, scroll down to find the resources right below this workshop. And to learn how other accessibility features work with the Accessibility button, like Magnification, Check out the rest of the series.

Now that we've turned on this feature and selected a color mode, let's move to our home screen to see if we notice a difference in the colors. To do this, we'll go down to the bottom of the screen to find our home button, which is a circle right in the center of our navigation bar. Or if you prefer to use gestures, swipe up with one finger from the bottom of the screen to get to the home screen. For more info on gesture navigation, or to switch from gesture navigation to the navigation bar, check out the resources. Again, the Resources tab is right below this workshop.

So, it looks like we've found our home button inside the navigation bar. We'll just tap it here, and now we're on our home screen.

If we don't have color blindness, we might notice just a slight change in how the colors appear for us here. However, for someone with colorblindness, this change can make a huge difference.

Next, let's do a little more exploring with our Color Correction feature turned on. We'll move to the bottom of the screen and swipe up with one finger to open our list of apps.

Here they are, and now let's find our Play Store app, which on this phone is right here at the top in our list of commonly used app apps. We'll tap on it to open it.

And the colors have changed here too. Again, depending on our vision, the change might look subtle, or it might make different colors much easier to tell apart.

It's wonderful that this feature works throughout our entire device. It really doesn't matter which app we're using. Android does a nice job of giving us the ability to adjust colors, or remove color altogether to match our own needs, and that makes using the device easier on the eyes and a more pleasant experience. Thanks for learning with me today. Until next time.