Tag Archives: psychology

Texas Design Week

design, opinions/rants, psychology, sleep, , ,

I’m off to Texas on Monday for Texas Design Week. I will be taking part in two panel discussions – one in Dallas and one in Houston – invited by Harlequin (part of the Sanderson Design Group) with whom I have been collaborating for a colour of years now. Last year I did something similar in Atlanta for Atlanta Design Week so I know what to expect. And we have done have half a dozen or more such panels in the UK over the last 24 months. I will be sharing the platform with designers of course and my role is to bring some findings from the world of colour science to the table. The mix of science and design in the discussions is always a lot of fun.

My relationship with Harlequin started when I was asked to write a white paper about colour and its effect on people at home and in the workplace. You can download that white paper here if you are interested.

Talking about colour in our lighting lab

In the white paper Soojin Lee and I identified two different ways in which colour (and light) can affect us. We referred to them as emotional and physical.

The emotional effect is often caused by associations; we associate certain colours with certain ideas or memories. We might find a blue room relaxing, for example. There is some commonality between people (because we all live in the same world) but at the same time there are differences between individuals. This is the same reason why, for example, blue is a colour liked by lots of people, but that we can find individuals who don’t like blue. I am one of those.

The physical effect is more to do with the direct effect of colour and light on our physiology. For example, we need exposure to lots of light in the morning and we need to avoid such exposure at night, to keep our circadian system in a healthy state and to enjoy good quality sleep. There is evidence that blue light, in particular, is alerting and can keep us awake. Because we all have the same physiology there tend to be fewer individual differences in these effects.

Sometimes these two effects are contradictory and can even occur at the same time. It’s why a blue bedroom (blue-painted wall, blue curtains or blue bed linen) can be relaxing whilst at the same time exposure exposure to bright blue light can be alerting.

So is blue alerting or relaxing? It depends. It doesn’t actually make any sense to ask the question in that abstract way. We should ask whether blue lighting or blue paint, for example, is relaxing – and then we can have a meaningful response.

changing button colour increased conversion

design, psychology, , , ,

button

It seems that only recently companies are carrying out what is known as split testing or A/B testing. Put two designs of a web site out and see which does best. Recently one company did just that. They had one web site with a green call-to-action button (as shown above) and another with a yellow call-to-action button. Changing the call-to-action button from green to yellow resulted in a 187.4% increase in conversions to their website. Is there some effect that yellow light could have compared to green? For example, could yellow light make users more impulsive?

According to Erika Dickstein it may be nothing to do with yellow at all but simply to do with the contrast – the yellow stands out better and therefore is more noticeable. Certainly more research is needed in this area.

Do women use more colour names than men?

culture, fun, , , ,

I just came across this funny cartoon about the difference between men and women in terms of colour names.

doghouse_color_wheel_altered

But on the same page I found the results from an actual colour survey where over five million colours were named across 222,500 user sessions. One aspect of the results is shown below:

doghouse_analysis

It does seem that there is some evidence that women use more colour names than men – though generally there was agreement between how the names were used. For further details see the original article.

guess what – red is sexy

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red is sexy
Guess what? Another article that concludes that women wearing red are more likely to attract a mate. Scientist claims women are reflecting their sexual intentions ‘from the beginning’ by wearing bright red clothing. It’s a shocker!!! Who would have thought it!

It must be true because I read it in the Daily Mail.

Colour and Manchester United

culture, fun, , , ,

van gaal

It’s not often I get to write about two of my favourite things at the same time. So I couldn’t resist remarking on a story today in the Daily Mirror about a colour code that Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal uses to describe different players in his squad. Apparently:

Blue:
“A blue player is intellectual and is always looking for structure and security in his job on the pitch.”

Red:
“A red player is creative, full of power, will want to work and is always focusing on the future.”

Green:
“A green player is very emotional, sensitive for different emotions or a different atmosphere in the squad.”

See the original article for the colours that the newspaper thinks that different players should be be allocated.

colour and branding

culture, design, knowledge, opinions/rants, , , , ,

mcdonalds

According to Jon Feagain colour affects brand development in five ways:

    It helps boost perception

    It attracts attention

    It can help to emphasise or conceal information

    It can help you appeal to the right audience

    It can can help the audience digest information better

I think all of these things are true. However, to make the right decisions a good understanding of colour semiotics is critical in my opinion. Achieving that is easier said than done.

MRes Colour Communication

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colour communication

We’re starting a new programme at Leeds University next September. It’s MRes Colour Communication. This is a one-year Masters programme by research but with a twist. There is a taught component in the first semester to get everyone up to speed to make sure they understand the basics of colour communication. They then explore one aspect of this in their research project and submit a dissertation at the end of the year. Please contact me at my University email of s.westland@leeds.ac.uk for further information or visit http://www.design.leeds.ac.uk/pg/research-degrees/.

AIC2014

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logobig-full
As some of you may know, I was General Chair of AIC2013 this year. We had a great time in Newcastle and spent a week with over 600 delegates talking about colour. But time moves on and we are approaching 2014. I would therefore like to draw your attention to the next AIC meeting which is in Mexico in October 2014. The theme is colour and culture and the venue – Oaxaca – is stunning. I hope to see you there.

For further details visit http://www.aic2014.org/index_en.html

Colour survey

culture, fun, opinions/rants, , , , , , , , ,

personal care products-1
I am currently carrying out some research using an on-line questionnaire about colour choices by consumers in product design. It would really help me a lot if you would take the survey. It only takes about 1 minute to complete. The link is http://questionpro.com/t/AKSnxZP9ij. Please feel free to share this link.

In a few weeks when the survey is completed you can come back to this page and you can see more details about what we were doing, why we were doing it, and what we found.

Steve