How we interpret colours

When I was doing my blog rounds the other day I came across an interesting article about how our eyes perceive colours.

I think the easiest way of describing the theory is that in our minds we see a shape and then the shape has a colour attached to it. So when we look at a post box we first see the shape of it as a object and then attach a colour to this object – which in this case is red.

Some strange stuff starts happening when you take away the shape and colour relationship. If one eye starts seeing one shape with a colour and then the same shape with another colour in the second eye the brain gets confused.

These two same shapes somehow can’t be combined into one in the brain, theres a conflict as if our minds are trying to figure out which is the ‘right’ colour.

I’ve always been interested in how we process the world around us not just in colours but also symbols. Certain symbols appear to have a universal meaning such as in airports but out there on the web there is not set standards. We’re left to the whims of designers who think we’re intelligent enough to interpret symbols in a particular way.

However in the past through user testing I’ve often found that although visually more appealing people like the reassurance of text, it generates authority and lacks ambiguity.

Of course pairing up images and words opens up an entirely new can of worms where our interpretation of the image is entirely skewed by our understanding of the accompanying text. A great famous example of this is of course Rene Magritte.

I’ve also recently become quite interested in the idea that age can be connected to our way of seeing, not just because our eyesight deteriorates over time but our understanding of what we’re looking at changes. Perhaps we aren’t able to grasp complex visual ideas or lots of constant movement.

Then theres the generational factor where someone is designing on behalf of someone who’s older, our expectations about what they want as users is also somewhat skewed. Personally I think its important to keep the goal for completion in mind when designing. What is it that your user is looking to achieve and how can your design facilitate their goal?

Related posts:

Otto Neurath and Semiotics I wanted to come back to an earlier post I...

Navigate through previous posts