Uno is finally colourblind-friendly

One of the world’s most popular card games can finally be played by colourblind people.

A new version of Uno has been designed to allow those unable to distinguish between the cards’ iconic hues to identify them using a series of symbols.

The icons were designed with the help of worldwide colourblind accessibility and education organisation ColorADD, which previously coined the system as a universal language to help people affected by any kind of colourblindness.

It’s a small but simple solution – in opposite corners of each card, next to the number, there is now one of three symbols that represent the primary colours of red, blue and yellow, with a fourth combining the blue and yellow icons to symbolise yellow in line with the ColorADD code.

Red/green confusion is the most common form of colourblindness – making Uno particularly hard to play for the last 46 years since its creation. Really, it’s a wonder nobody thought of this in the last near-half-century.

Despite the minimal impact on the original design of the cards, the colourblind-accessible edition of Uno won’t become the norm just yet.

For the time being, it’s only being sold directly as a separate pack via publisher Mattel’s website – something the company says is down to testing the waters to measure initial demand.

But with the 350 million people around the globe who suffer from some form of colourblindness now able to enjoy one more game with minimal extra effort, hopefully this is a trend we’ll begin to see becoming the standard across the tabletop soon.