8% of males and 1% of females are color-blind. This equates to roughly 1 out of 25 people. There are several forms of color-blindness, but the fact remains, this is a good chunk of the world population. Chances are, you and I know several people who suffer from color-blindness. I bet they use a computer on a regular basis, and if they do, they probably have a difficult time distinguishing between colors.

If you don't suffer from color-blindness, it's hard to understand what those who do go through on a daily basis. Below is a normal chart showing various colors:

Below is the same chart, but this illustrates what it would look like for those suffering from the most common form of color-blindness (red/green color-blindness):

As you can see, it can be challenging to make sense of it all. For those who do suffer from color-blindness, this is old news to you, and to help, there is a utility out there called "EyePilot". Appropriately named, this application helps your computer to help your eyes to distinguish between the various colors. Although it won't show you the real colors that are being displayed, it will help to break them out so that they make sense.

To do this, EyePilot uses a window-on-top-of-a-window approach. As illustrated at the right, the utility is a window that sits on top of the window you are working on. The EyePilot window then helps you to turn on or off certain colors.

For a free 30-day trial of EyePilot, click here. At the end of the 30 days, the software will expire. If EyePilot works for you, it costs just $34. The software is available for Mac and Windows.

EyePilot is also great for those who do a lot of analysis which involves color-coded data (such as financial, bio-tech, etc). For more information on this feature, click here.