1. Color

2. Color Instructive Properties
Has the ability to guide, signal or persuade a user.
Non-Instructive Properties
Has the ability to create meaning, promote a feeling, create an emotion or set a tone

3. Color
An excellent tool to create relationships between elements of a design
An excellent tool to guide a user through a design, we call this signaling

4. Color Color is a gut reaction, has a huge often unspoken impact
Always consider your audience:
Age
Gender
Class
Culture

5. Exploring by Color Age Differences:
Young children like brighter, solid colors
Teens are drawn to chaotic color palettes and often “like” the messiness of colors
Adults lean toward muted color schemes and can appreciate subtlety and refinement

6. Exploring by Color Gender Differences:
Across many cultures, men prefer cool colors
Color blindness is prevalent in Western men at about 12% making it hard to discern differences between reds and greens
Women gravitate toward warmer colors
Women can appreciate and discern more subtle color variations

7. Exploring by Color Class Differences:
Based on marketing research, working class people gravitate toward primary or unmixed colors, like blue, green
More highly educated people are attracted to more complicated colors like azure, mauve, taupe

8. Exploring by Color Cultural Differences:
Colors relate to the cultural references from where and when you grew up
Have to be careful with a global audience
Example: in East, white is funereal, where in the West it is a symbol of marriage and purity
Color meanings across cultures:

9. Color on the Web Based on the colors of light:
Red, Green, Blue
More limited range of colors than in print
Unpredictable colors per display device
Computer monitors
Across operating systems, PC vs. Mac
Phone screens
TVs
Navigation system in cars

10. Color on the Web
Originally, there were 256 colors that browsers could display. These were called Web Safe colors.
They were thought to be safe to use because they would display correctly no matter what device called them.
This was a myth.
Macs and PCs would still display colors differently.

11. Color on the Web Modern browsers can display millions of colors.
There are still variations between devices.
So…you pick your color and cross your fingers.
There is no such thing as calibration or control for color on the Web or digital devices that call the Web.

12. Color on the Web
There should be no carnival of colors in your Web sites.
Typically, we choose one dominant color, then a secondary color and at most a third that is used sparingly.
Lots of colors on a Web site can really create problems for users as they try to figure out your content/hierarchy/intent.

13. Color on the Web Web colors are referred to as hex values.
For example:
17cc12 is a bright green
E8c16c is a light orange
In code they are coded as #f28c9a. (pink)

14. Color Why select a color? What goes in to the selection?
How do you actually select it?

15. Color
What colors are you careful with?
Why?

16. Color
How close do you stay to branding colors for the color scheme of a Web site?

17. Color
What do you do with “trendy” colors?

18. Color
What does a black background do to a site?

19. Color
What has blue come to signify on the Web?

20. Color Resources Kuler http://colorresources.com/