Accessibility
Taking part in research with a screen reader
A practical guide for screen reader users on completing online surveys, handling grid questions, and joining focus groups to share valuable feedback.
Colour blindness and online surveys
Taking online surveys with color blindness can be frustrating when questions rely only on color. Discover how to manage confusing rating scales, set up helpful browser tools, and tell researchers about your accessibility needs.
Key points
- Color-coded rating scales and charts are difficult to read without clear text labels or patterns.
- You can use built-in computer settings and browser extensions to adjust the colors on your screen.
- Leaving feedback at the end of a survey helps researchers learn to design more accessible questions.
- Your opinions matter because they prevent companies from creating new products that ignore accessibility needs.
How color blindness changes the survey experience
If you have color blindness, some online surveys can feel like a confusing guessing game. You might open a study and find a question asking you to click a green button to agree or a red button to disagree. If those two colors look exactly the same to your eyes, you cannot answer accurately. Color blindness means you see colors differently than most people, often making it hard to tell shades like red and green apart.
When market research companies create surveys, they want your honest opinions on new products. They use these surveys to help big brands make decisions about what to sell. But if their questions rely entirely on color to communicate meaning, they miss out on your true thoughts. The researchers get bad data because you had to guess which button to click.
Dealing with color-coded scales and grid questions
Many surveys use rating scales to measure how much you like or dislike something. A researcher might design a scale with a dark green box for agree fading into a dark red box for disagree. Without clear text labels on every single box, someone with a color vision deficiency might just see a row of muddy brown squares. This forces you to guess which end of the scale is positive and which is negative.
Grid questions can be even worse. A grid question is a large table where you rate several different items at the same time. Sometimes, survey platforms highlight the row you are looking at with a pale yellow or light gray background. If you cannot see that subtle color shift, it is very easy to click the wrong row and give the wrong answer.
The trouble with concept images and shelf tests
Surveys often ask you to look at pictures of new products before they hit the stores. You might be shown three different options for a new cereal box and asked which one catches your eye. If the designs rely on colors that blend together for you, it is hard to give helpful feedback. You might miss important details on the packaging simply because the colors clash.
Another common type of survey question is a virtual shelf test. In a shelf test, you look at a picture of a supermarket shelf and click on the product you would naturally buy. Sometimes, the instructions tell you to click the blue bottle or find the item with the red tag. If you cannot easily spot those colors, a simple shopping task becomes a highly stressful test.
What an accessible survey actually looks like
Market researchers are slowly learning how to make their questions work better for everyone. An accessible survey uses more than just color to share important information. Good designers use a few simple rules to make sure you never have to guess.
- Text labels on every single rating button, so you read words instead of guessing colors.
- Patterns or textures on data charts, using stripes or dots instead of just solid shades.
- High contrast text, matching very dark letters with very light backgrounds for easy reading.
- Underlined web links, so you do not have to spot a different text color to find a link.
These small changes mean you spend your time sharing your actual opinions. If you want to know more about these specific design choices, you can read our guide on what an accessible survey looks like.
Tools and settings you can use on your device
You do not have to wait for researchers to fix every single survey. There are tools built into your computer and phone that can help you take surveys right now. Both Windows and Mac computers have color filter settings hidden in their main accessibility menus. You can turn these filters on to shift the colors on your screen, making it much easier to tell problem colors apart.
Try a browser extension. You can install free extensions for your web browser that automatically adjust the colors on web pages to suit your specific type of color vision deficiency. Some extensions even let you hover your mouse over an image to read the exact name of the color.
Taking a few minutes to set up these tools can make answering survey questions much less stressful. Smartphones also have similar options in their display and vision settings. You can usually find these features in the main settings menu under accessibility or display options.
Telling researchers about survey problems
Market research companies really need to hear when their surveys are hard to use. If a survey has a box at the very end asking for your feedback, you should always use it. You can tell them exactly why their charts were impossible to read or why their buttons were confusing. This type of feedback goes directly to the people who build the surveys, helping them realize they need to change their design habits.
You can also help by keeping your panel profile updated. Profile surveys are short questionnaires that help panels match you with the right studies. If a profile survey asks about your vision or accessibility needs, answering honestly helps panels understand their members. You can learn more about how profile surveys work, and why they bring better invitations.
Why your opinions matter for better products
Brands and companies make major business decisions based on what survey takers tell them. If people with color blindness cannot finish a survey, their opinions are completely left out of those big decisions. That means companies might design packaging or websites that are also hard for you to read. Your voice helps fix this problem before a product ever reaches the market.
By taking part in research, you remind big companies that their real customers have many different needs. We need diverse voices in research to make sure new products work for the real world. You can read more about why research needs disabled voices. If you are ready to share your opinions and help shape new products, you can create a free account with Reward Hours today.
Common questions
Will I get screened out of surveys if I report color blindness?
Having color blindness should not automatically disqualify you from most surveys. Market research needs opinions from all types of consumers to make sure products appeal to everyone. However, you might be screened out of a specific visual test if the researcher needs to test exact color matching.
Can I still do product testing at home if I am color blind?
Yes, you can absolutely test products at home. Companies test things like taste, texture, smell and how easy a product is to use. Your experience using the product in your own home provides valuable feedback that has nothing to do with color.
How do I complain about a poorly designed survey?
The best way is to leave a comment in the open text box at the end of the survey if one is provided. You can also contact the support team of your survey panel with the specific survey number. They can pass your feedback along to the researchers who designed the confusing questions.
