From The Straits Times    |

Colour blind1.png

Those who are colour-blind will now be able to identify colours they are unable to see and avoid wearing mis-matched outfits – thanks to a new mobile app.

Launched last week, the free app – ColourLife – aims to help those who are colour vision deficient distinguish hues they are unable to differentiate.

Users simply open the camera function on the app and point it towards a particular objectand the colours will be stated on the screen.

“The colour identification function will help users to, for example, tell apart the colours green and red on the MRT map,” said Mr Andrew Tan, 36, a lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s (NP) School of Infocomm Technology.

He is part of the team behind this app which is available on Android devices. The rest of the team is made up of 10 students – most of whom have since graduated – and lecturers from the polytechnic.

The idea of creating such an app was first mooted in 2011 by former NP student Hang Zhi Cheng, who suffers from red-green colour blindness.

As a computer enthusiast, having this condition made it difficult for him to tell apart colour-coded computer cables.

“I liked joining cables together, but I needed help from my parents to help me differentiate the colours… So I decided to come up with an app that would help colour-blind users track colours on the fly,” said the 20-year-old who is now a full-time national serviceman.

The app has since been tested and expanded to include other functions like “match”.

All users have to do is take a picture of their outfit and select the colours they want for their tops and bottoms and the app will tell them if the colours go well together.

It also has a “test” function for users to check if they are colour-blind.

Polytechnic student Chiew Jun Yong, 19, who cannot differentiate the colours purple and blue, thinks the “match” function would be useful for young people.

He said: “People who are colour-blind may end up choosing outfits where the colour combination doesn’t match. But as teenagers, everyone wants to look good.”

This article was first run in The Straits Times newspaper on December 2, 2013. For similar stories, go to sph.straitstimes.com/premium/singapore. You will not be able to access the Premium section of The Straits Times website unless you are already a subscriber.

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