As though reading weren't hard enough already...

kw: opinion, color vision, alternative alphabets

Take a look at the Kromofons web site. Here we have a fellow who has worked on a color alphabet, consisting only of rectangles of 26 different colors. I have, so far as I know, perfect color vision, but I find some of the colors hard to distinguish. First of all, if this scheme is to fly, the colors need to be more evenly distributed in L*a*b* space (read this article for more info).

But take a look at this wikipedia entry to find out why one person in twelve will never be able to use the system.

Side thought: I wonder if using 26 or 52 tones (plus some extras to include punctuation), and an appropriate tone generator, one could learn to hear words as chords. Complications like repeated letters, and that anagrams all sound the same, could make it an interesting game, but probably of little use. Speech is so efficient already.

Hey! Where are the punctuation marks in Kromofons? You need ten more colors...at least!!!