This post has nothing to do with the sad state of current affairs. It has everything to do with questions were posed as essay cues for a recent assignment in Media 111, Intro to Multimedia Web.
How does color make a difference? Does it matter for Universal Design (UD), User Experience (UX), and User Interface (UI)?
We’ll, I thought, lots of different ways – more than I can count. Of course, it matters, for Universal Design, the User Experience, and the User Interface, collectively the UDXI, perhaps, as they’re all interrelated, I think.
(I managed environmental compliance at large coal-fired power plants for over a quarter of a century. I interfaced with EPA, DEQ, DOE and COE on a host of matters relating to CAA, CWA, my areas of expertise, especially regarding NSPS and NPDES, and often dealt with things RCRA and EPCRA, NEPA and ESA. Acronyms are the bane of the communication…)
Fundamentally, we are all in this class to learn how to make our websites both accessible and appealing, so that our visitors will tarry awhile, and come back again and again to see us.
Regardless of our content, if our style is such that the colours we choose for our fonts and backgrounds are such that our clients cannot absorb the message that we wish to deliver because they cannot see it, or have difficulty doing so, they will neither tarry, nor return. We will have been found in violation of Principle No. 4 of Universal Design, Perceptible Information, guilty of creating a poor user interface.
If our choice of colours is so foreboding or dissonant as to make the visit jarring or uncomfortable, the experience unpalatable, our visitors won’t stay long, and won’t come back.
So, what do we do? Follow the Principles – make it readable, make it comfortable, make it welcoming. A good host puts his or her guests at ease, and ensures that the conversation flows. So, make damn sure that the content is there, too.
Do colors have meaning or messages on their own?
Yes, of course. But be careful – what we might think are intrinsic responses to different colours are heavily influenced by preference, personal experience, and culture. So, be a good hitchhiker, and take along your guide.
How would the GPP of a robot relate to the color it is? (H2G2 reference)
Colour should have absolutely no bearing on “Genuine People Personality,’ or GPP, of a robot – arguably, it is programming, and programming alone. Marvin would be a depressed passive-aggressive, regardless of his skin colour.