1. Color IS 403: User Interface Design Shaun Kane
(slides based on Amy Hurst’s 403 slides)
Color

2. Today Sync up on schedule, assignments Kaitlyn: Reading summary
More about color
Color activity

3. WHY STUDY COLOR?

4. Cultural Significance of Colors

5. Color and Mood http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html Black
Black is the color of authority and power. It is popular in fashion because it makes people appear thinner. It is also stylish and timeless. Black also implies submission. Priests wear black to signify submission to God. Some fashion experts say a woman wearing black implies submission to men. Black outfits can also be overpowering, or make the wearer seem aloof or evil. Villains, such as Dracula, often wear black.
Yellow
Cheerful sunny yellow is an attention getter. While it is considered an optimistic color, people lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies will cry more. It is the most difficult color for the eye to take in, so it can be overpowering if overused. Yellow enhances concentration, hence its use for legal pads. It also speeds metabolism.
Purple
The color of royalty, purple connotes luxury, wealth, and sophistication. It is also feminine and romantic. However, because it is rare in nature, purple can appear artificial.

6. Color Theory

7. The artist’s model: primary colors

8. The Secondary Colors

9. Tertiary Colors

10. An artist’s color wheel

11. Color Schemes
RGB vs. HSB

12. RGB Scheme
What is the RGB scheme?
Where do you use it?

13. RGB Scheme
An additive color system, since you add light from the primary colors to make new colors.
The values for Red, Green, and Blue may be specified in percent (0–100); or in a scale from 0–255 (decimal) or 00–FF (hex)—where 255 or FF = 100%.
Remember: higher numbers mean more of each color of light.
More is lighter, less is darker!

14. RGB Scheme Red = (255,0,0) Green = (0,255,0) Blue = (0,0,255)
Magenta = (255,0,255)
Yellow = (255,255,0)
What’s #ff00ff?

15. HSB Scheme This scheme is a device-independent way to describe color
 Hue
 Saturation
 Brightness

16. HSB Model

17. HSB Model
 Hue is the actual color. Measured in angular degrees counter- clockwise around the cone starting and ending at red = 0 or 360 (yellow = 60, green = 120, etc.).
 Saturation is the purity of the color, measured in percent from the center of the cone (0) to the surface (100).At 0% saturation, hue is meaningless.
 Brightness is measured in percent from black (0) to white (100).At 0% brightness, both hue and saturation are meaningless.

18. More about saturation White, black, and grays are 0% saturated
A color becomes more saturated as it moves away from gray to a pure color
A pure (fully-saturated) color, in RGB terms, is:
Only red, green, or blue, or
Only yellow (= red + green), or
Only magenta (= red + blue)
A saturated color can have a range of brightnesses

19. Vary saturation, constant brightness

20. Vary brightness, constant saturation

21. Useful Guidelines
ADAPTED FROM “UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN: 100 WAYS TO ENHANCE USABILITY, INFLUENCE PERCEPTION, INCREASE APPEAL, MAKE BETTER DESIGN DECISIONS AND
TEACH THROUGH DESIGN”

22. How Many Colors?
Limit the palette to what the eye can process at one glance
Don’t use more than 5 colors

23. Color Blindness
Don’t use color as the only way to distinguish information
User is not like me
vischeck.com

24. Color Combinations

25. Color Combinations Create aesthetic color combinations!
Use adjacent colors on the color wheel (analogous)
Use opposing colors on the color wheel (complementary)
Use colors at the corners of a symmetrical polygon (triadic and quadratic)
Use color combinations found in nature

26. Monochromatic 1 Hue, possibly in different values
Looks clean and elegant
Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect.

27. Monochromatic
Blues
Reds

28. Complementary 2 Complementary Hues (opposites on color wheel)
Tricky to use in large doses, but work well when you want something to stand out.
Really bad for text

29. Complementary
Red and Green
Orange and Blue

30. Triadic 3 colors at corners of equilateral triangle
Often vibrant, even if you use pale or unsaturated versions of your hues.
Colors should be carefully balanced - let one color dominate and use the two others for accent.

31. A triadic can shout . . .

32. ...or whisper ...

33. . . . or speak conversationally . . .

34. Analogous 3-5 adjacent hues
Use to create serene and comfortable designs. Often found in nature and are harmonious and pleasing to the eye.
Make sure you have enough contrast when choosing an analogous color scheme.
Choose one color to dominate, a second to support. The third color is used (along with black, white or gray) as an accent.

35. Analogous
Blue, Green, Yellow

36. Split Complementary Variation of complementary scheme.
Uses a base color and the two colors adjacent to its complement.
This color scheme has the same strong visual contrast as the complementary color scheme, but has less tension.
Split-complimentary color scheme is often a good choice for beginners.

37. Useful Tools http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp
(for color blindness)

38. Using color effectively

39. Background/Foreground
 Use warmer colors for foreground element
 Use cooler colors for background elements

40. Grouping Elements
Light gray is a safe color to use for grouping elements without competing with other colors
White may also be OK

41. Using Saturation Wisely
Use saturated colors (pure hues) when you want to attract attention
Use desaturated colors when performance and efficiency are the priority
Desaturated, bright colors are perceived as friendly and professional
Desaturated, dark colors are perceived as serious and professional
Saturated colors are perceived as more exciting and dynamic
Be careful when combining saturated colors! They can visually interfere with each other and cause fatigue

42. Symbolism
There is no substantive evidence supporting general effects of color on emotion and mood. However…
Verify the meaning of colors and color combinations for a particular target audience prior to use
More about this in The Power of Color by Morton Walker, 1991.

43. Highlighting  Color is a potentially effective highlighting technique
 Should be used sparingly and only with other highlighting techniques
Such as bold or maybe changing type
 Highlight using a few desaturated colors that are clearly distinct from one another

44. Interference Effects
Break mental models and cause user to either make mistakes or take longer to understand
Stroop Inference

45. Contrast of Light and Dark
Dark Colors come forward
Light colors stay in the back
True for both grayscale and color
Use high contrast when you want to make a loud statement

46. Branding

47. What brand is this?

48. What brand is this?

49. Branding

50. Branding

51. Branding: Blue

52. Branding Blue

53. Branding Blue

54. Interested in more advice?

55. Color schemes in the wild
Let’s do some color exploration

56. Colors from nature
Look behind (and around) you!

57. Color activity Let’s pick a new color scheme for the UMBC home page
Analogous
Complementary
Triadic