For many people with color blindness, red and green look like the same color. That can be problematic in a number of situations — including playing UNO. Now after 46 years on the shelf, Mattel is releasing a redesigned colorblind-friendly version of the game.
The game uses iconography from the ColorADD standard, a system used by colorblind people. Each UNO card features a small icon beside each number that corresponds to a color. For instance, yellow is designated by a single diagonal line. So, even if you can’t determine what color the card is, you’ll be able to determine its color based on that icon.
It might not seem like that big of a deal, but as Fast Company notes, UNO is the most popular non-collectible card game in the world, as well as the fourth most popular toy in the entire industry. Meanwhile, an estimated 13 million Americans are colorblind.
For those that aren’t colorblind, the deck will look pretty unchanged. The icons beside each number are discrete, and if you didn’t know to be looking for them, you might overlook them while playing the game.
For now, the colorblind version of the game is being sold as an experiment, but down the line, it could become the everyday version of the game.
