Tag Archives: red

colour blind designers?

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Is colour blindness a problem in design? Colour blind is rare amongst females but is very common amongst males. Approximately 8% of all the men in the world have some form of colour blindness. Colour blindness is a bit of a misnomer of colour; most colour-blind people can see colour but confuse colours that so-called normal observers can easily distinguish between. The most common case is red-green colour blindness and such sufferers find it hard to tell reds and greens apart.

 

But does design take this into account sufficiently? One area where there may be a problem is in the gaming industry. I came across the following comment today where someone is reporting a problem using Call of Duty (a game I don;t play but which I understand is quite popular) on the Xbox. Apparently, the Gamertags of all the players are either green if they are on your team, or red if they are an enemy. Oops!! I wonder how much of a problem this is. The problem is probably greatest when colour is used to convey information (as in this case, friend or enemy) rather just for aesthetics (where the information may be conveyed by contrast alone).

New Scientist colour quiz

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New Scientist recently undertook an informal study to see if red is off-putting in a testing environment. 

They set up two quizzes, each consisting of the same 15 anagrams. One quiz was predominantly red and the other blue.

On every attempt to access the article, a pop-up appeared requesting that you take part in the test. The colour of the text and border of this box was randomly selected to be either blue or red, corresponding to the colour of the text and border of the anagram test to which it linked. They then gathered data on the click-through rate for both colours, and the relative success rate.

They got roughly the same follow-through rate for both colours – 8478 for red and 8550 for blue – so the colour of the pop-up did not seem to have an effect on how attractive a prospect it was to take part in the quiz.

They also found that the readers scored an average of 63 per cent in the quiz, irrespective of whether the text and boarder colours were red or blue.

See http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18071-colour-psychology-quiz-the-results.html

the power of red

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An interesting article in New Scientist has explored the influence of colour on the choices we make; how we act and think. The article – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327232.400-winners-wear-red-how-colour-twists-your-mind.html?full=true – quotes research published in Psychologial Science that revealed that the colour of clothing worn by competitors in a taekwondo contest affects the decisions even by experienced referees. In short, competitors wearing red were awarded 13% more points than those dressed in blue

 taekwondo

This builds on previous research published in Nature in 2005 – http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7040/full/435293a.html – that showed that between 55% and 62% of bouts in Olympic combat contests were won by competitors wearing red when in fact red and blue should have won 50% each if colour had no effect. Robert Barton, from Durham University (UK) has argued that the colour red could influence the mind of the referee but could also affect the mental state and performance of the competitor.

Interestingly, 38 of the last 63 top division soccer titles in England have been won by teams in red (Manchester, United, Arsenal, Liverpool) and goalkeepers feel more confident about saving a penalty from a player in a white shirt than in a red one. Both of these facts were taken from papers published in Journal of Sports Sciences.

silver still the most popular car colour

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Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries Inc. said silver has been the number one colour for nine straight years, accounting for 25 per cent of vehicle paint choices in the U.S., 35 per cent in Europe and 34 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region.

In the U.S., silver rose from 20 per cent of the market a year ago. White finished second at 18 per cent and black was third with 16 per cent. Red was a distant fourth at 12 per cent. See http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gi9WBgK8rDlLWiq1EGAWASLjOwPA

However, it would be interesting to see a more detailed analysis by car type and model. I used to have a Mazda MX5. It was bright red. Although the dark grey MX5 looks nice, for the MX5 you really have to have red in my opinion. It’s iconic.

Having said that, I just searched for MX5 on Google images. It produced, on page 1, 10 silver cars, 5 red cars, and 2 blue cars. So the power of the iconic little red sports car could be weakening and silver could be reigning supreme.

My longing – like that of many others of my age – for a little red sports car probably goes back to The Graduate and Benjamin Braddock’s red Alfa Spider (see picture below).

Thegraduate