I still remember Uno nights with my family and how my red-green colourblind grandfather always needed help distinguishing his cards. I always attributed it to the nature of the game and never really saw it as inaccessibility. It wasn’t until Mattel announced it would make Uno and a few of its other most popular games colourblind accessible that I realized how much-needed this change was.
The American multinational toy company says that 80% of its games portfolio—in terms of volume—will be colourblind accessible by the end of 2024. The games receiving these updates are Uno (available now), Dos, Blokus, Phase 10, Skip-Bo, and Ker Plunk.
The colorblind-friendly versions of the company’s games will receive a special badge on their packaging. Game pieces and boards will feature unique icons and tactile clues to help identify colours. There will also be a dedicated “For Colorblind Players” section on the instruction manual that gamers can refer to for a list of game icons and what they represent.
This welcome change comes from a partnership between Mattel and ColorADD, an expert in this area and the biggest player behind Uno ColorAdd. The company also claims that it sought guidance from folks with colourblindness via online and in-person interviews.
It’s great to see game companies finally taking steps to increase accessibility in their products, like Google’s Project Gameface, announced during 2023’s Google I/O, which allows you to play games with facial gestures or PlayStation’s accessibility-focused controller. Mattel cites this study as the motivation behind this update, which says that 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are colourblind, totalling approximately 300 million people worldwide.