Colour Independence
Design interfaces where colour is never the only way information is communicated. Use when designing status indicators, data visualisations, form validation, alerts, maps, or any content that uses colour to convey meaning. Triggers on: colour blind, color blind, colour alone, color alone, colour vision, color vision, red green, deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia, colour coding, status colour, c…
Install
$ agentstack add skill-owl-listener-inclusive-design-skills-colour-independence ✓ scanned · ✓ verified, works with Claude Code, Cursor, and more.
Security review
✓ PassedNo issues found. Passed automated security review. · v0.1.0 How review works →
- ✓ Prompt-injection patterns
- ✓ Secret / credential exfiltration
- ✓ Dangerous shell & filesystem operations
- ✓ Untrusted network calls
- ✓ Known-malicious package signatures
What it can access
- ✓ Network access No
- ✓ Filesystem access No
- ✓ Shell / process execution No
- ✓ Environment & secrets No
- ✓ Dynamic code execution No
From automated source analysis of v0.1.0. “Used” means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it’s unsafe.
Verified badge
Passed review? Show it. Paste this badge into your README, it links to the public security report.
Links to your public security report.[](https://agentstack.voostack.com/security/report/skill-owl-listener-inclusive-design-skills-colour-independence) Reliability & compatibility
Declared compatibility
Compatibility is declared by the source manifest. End-to-end runtime verification is coming, see below.
We're building live execution health for every listing: tool-call success rate, median latency, uptime, and last-checked timestamps, measured, not self-reported. It isn't live yet, so we don't show numbers we can't stand behind.
How agent discovery & health will work →About
Colour Independence
Design so that every piece of information conveyed by colour is also conveyed by something else — shape, text, pattern, position, or icon. 8% of men and 0.5% of women have colour vision deficiency. That's roughly 1 in 12 of your male users.
Core Principle
Colour can enhance meaning. Colour must never be the only carrier of meaning.
Common Failures
Status Indicators
- Bad: green dot = online, red dot = offline (colour only)
- Good: green dot + "Online" label, red dot + "Offline" label
- Better: green dot with tick + "Online", grey dot with x + "Offline"
Form Validation
- Bad: red border on invalid fields (colour only)
- Good: red border + error icon + error text message
- The error message does the real work — the colour is reinforcement
Data Visualisation
- Bad: line chart with 5 coloured lines, legend uses colour swatches
- Good: different line styles (solid, dashed, dotted) + labels +
distinct colours that work in greyscale
- Good: bar chart with patterns (stripes, dots, solid) alongside colour
- Always test charts in greyscale — can you still read them?
Links
- Bad: links distinguished from body text only by colour
- Good: links are coloured AND underlined
- The underline is the accessible indicator — colour is the enhancement
Alerts and Badges
- Bad: red badge = urgent, yellow = warning, green = ok
- Good: red badge + "Urgent" label, yellow + "Warning" label,
green + "OK" label
- Icons reinforce: ⚠ for warning, ✓ for success, ✕ for error
Maps and Diagrams
- Bad: regions coloured to show data (choropleth with no labels)
- Good: colours + patterns + values displayed on each region
- Good: interactive with values on hover/focus AND a data table
alternative
Design Patterns
Double Encoding
Every colour meaning gets a second encoding:
- Colour + icon
- Colour + text label
- Colour + pattern or texture
- Colour + shape
- Colour + position
Accessible Colour Palettes
- Choose colours that are distinguishable in all types of
colour vision deficiency (not just red-green)
- Use a colour blindness simulator to test your palette
- Blue and orange are generally safe for most types
- Avoid red/green as the only pair distinguishing two states
- Ensure sufficient contrast between adjacent colours in charts
Greyscale Test
Quick check: convert your interface to greyscale.
- Can you still use it?
- Can you distinguish all status states?
- Can you read the chart?
- Can you tell which fields have errors?
If any answer is no, colour is carrying meaning alone.
Assessment Checklist
- [ ] No information is conveyed by colour alone
- [ ] Status indicators use colour + icon + text
- [ ] Form errors use colour + icon + message
- [ ] Charts are readable in greyscale
- [ ] Links are distinguishable by more than colour
- [ ] Alert levels use colour + label + icon
- [ ] Data visualisations have patterns or labels alongside colour
- [ ] Interface passes the greyscale test
Source & license
This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.
- Author: Owl-Listener
- Source: Owl-Listener/inclusive-design-skills
- License: MIT
Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.
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Versions
- v0.1.0 Imported from the upstream source.