Putting colour blindness on the OS map

Anyone with colour vision deficiency (CVD) will know the problem when confronted with reading a traditional map; they are much more difficult to read than they should be. Colours usually easily distinguishable to the human eye, such as red or green, appear very similar and maps that use spectral rainbow colour schemes are difficult to comprehend.

Ordnance Survey (OS) is working to solve these issues by experimenting with alternative mapping styles for people with CVD. It has developed free styles to download for digital mapping, through its customisable mapping tool OS Open Zoomstack (www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/open-zoomstack).

OS data scientist Jessica Baker created two new mapping styles; one to help red-green colour blindness and one to help blue-yellow.