Creative West had a story about an accessibility aid I had no idea existed —color correction lenses for people with colorblindness.
The lenses don’t completely provide an accurate viewing of color the way eye glasses can allow people to see things in sharp detail. Rather, they allow people to see gradients and nuances between colors that had previously all appeared to be the same.
The Albuquerque Museum Foundation provides the glasses to visitors for free to help people experience their collection. The Creative West piece provides a link to a story David Lee wrote about his experience.
He had been a frequent visitor to the museum so was familiar with the collection and hoped to have his socks knocked off by the difference with the glasses the same way his nearsighted grandfather had been when he realized he could see individual leaves on trees.
It wasn’t that extreme, but he did notice differences. Also, it apparently takes 15-30 minutes to get used to viewing things through the glasses.
David Lee writes:
But I persisted, giving the paintings I’d already seen additional long looks, and something interesting began to happen. When I started repeatedly taking the glasses off and on again, differences began to emerge. Colors through the corrective lenses seemed more vivid, warmer, and often a little darker. I sensed, though, that this darkness was due not to any obscuring of what I was seeing, as with sunglasses. Rather, I seemed to be taking in more color overall.
[….]
Hoping to test the glasses out on real grass and trees, I finagled permission to step outside with them for a minute. In the sculpture garden out front, I was surprised again: The lawn somehow looked brighter and more alive without the glasses. With them, it seemed dull and dark – kind of lifeless. The trees I looked at didn’t change much either way. Maybe this outdoor test needed more time, too.
Because those with color blindness have it in different degrees and relation to difference colors, the museum reports the lens result in a wide range of visitor experiences. Some don’t really see any change while others experience a more marked change.
Given that around 10% of males and a smaller number of females are color blind, this is an underserved population of immense numbers that museums could potentially serve and welcome.
