COLOUR SELECTION TOOLS FOR BLOGS

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There is some important information concerning human vision impairments that designers and bloggers should be aware of when making colour selections for blog themes and website templates.

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT VISION IMPAIRMENTS

Estimates vary as to the number of Americans who are blind and visually impaired. According to one estimate, approximately 10 million people in the United States are blind or visually impaired. Other estimates indicate that one million adults older than the age of 40 are blind, and 2.4 million are visually impaired. Over the next 30 years, as the baby-boomer generation ages, the number of adults with vision impairments is expected to double. Recent figures also indicate that only 46% of working-age adults with vision impairments and 32% of legally blind working-age adults are employed.

HOW WE SEE COLOUR

Considered to be part of the brain itself, the retina is covered by millions of light-sensitive cells, some shaped like rods and some like cones. These receptors process the light into nerve impulses and pass them along to the cortex of the brain via the optic nerve.

Rods are most highly concentrated around the edge of the retina.There are over 120 million of them in each eye. Rods transmit mostly black and white information to the brain. As rods are more sensitive to dim light than cones, you lose most color vision in dusky light and your peripheral vision is less colorful. It is the rods that help your eyes adjust when you enter a darkened room.

Cones are concentrated in the middle of the retina, with fewer on the periphery. Six million cones in each eye transmit the higher levels of light intensity that create the sensation of color and visual sharpness. There are three types of cone-shaped cells, each sensitive to the long, medium or short wavelengths of light. These cells, working in combination with connecting nerve cells, give the brain enough information to interpret and name colors.

The human eye can perceive more variations in warmer colors than cooler ones. This is because almost 2/3 of the cones process the longer light wavelengths (reds, oranges and yellows).

About 8% of men and 1% of women have some form of color impairment. Most people with color deficiencies aren’t aware that the colors they perceive as identical appear different to other people. Most still perceive color, but certain colors are transmitted to the brain differently.

The most common impairment is red and green dichromatism which causes red and green to appear indistinguishable. Other impairments affect other color pairs. People with total color blindness are very rare.

Colour Vision Impairments
*protanopy – 1% of men
*deuteranopy – 1% of men
*tritanopy – .0003% of the population
*protanomaly – 1% of men
*deuteranomaly – 5% of men and 4% of women
*tritanomaly almost 0%
*full colour blindness .005% of the population
*atypical monochromatism

RED-GREEN VISION IMPAIRMENTS
Abstract: An Evaluation of Color Selections to Accommodate Map Users with Color-Vision Impairments
Authors: Olson J.M.1; Brewer C.A.2
Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Volume 87, Number 1, March 1997, pp. 103-134(32)
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing

An experiment shows that maps can be designed to accommodate the approximately 4 percent of the population with red-green color-vision impairments. The experiment used seven pairs of maps with seven different color schemes to determine the effects of color selection on the map-reading ability of people with impaired or normal color vision.

One rendition in each pair had colors that were potentially confusing to people with red-green impairments; the other had colors selected specifically to accommodate this group. On the set with potentially confusing colors, people with red-green impairments were less accurate and took longer to respond than those with normal color vision. They were just as accurate as those with normal color vision on the set with accommodating colors but continued to have longer reaction times.

Analysis of accuracy confirmed the interaction between vision group (normal, impaired) and rendition of the map (confusing, accommodating) and indicated that performance differed from one color scheme to another. An analysis of variance of reaction times on legend-matching questions yielded similar results for the same variables. A second part of the test asked participants to choose from each pair (confusing, accommodating) of the renditions the map that was easier or better to use. Those with red-green impairments overwhelmingly chose the accommodating renditions; those with normal color vision did not show a clear preference for one rendition over the other.
Keywords: cartography; color schemes; color selection; map design; red-green color-vision impairments

COLOR PSYCHOLOGY

Our personal and cultural associations affect our experience of color. Colors are seen as warm or cool mainly because of long-held (and often universal) associations. Yellow, orange and red are associated with the heat of sun and fire; blue, green and violet with the coolness of leaves, sea and the sky. Warm colors seem closer to the viewer than cool colors, but vivid cool colors can overwhelm light and subtle warm colors. Using warm colors for foreground and cool colors for background enhances the perception of depth.

Although red, yellow and orange are in general considered high-arousal colors and blue, green and most violets are low-arousal hues, the brilliance, darkness and lightness of a color can alter the psychological message. While a light blue-green appears to be tranquil, wet and cool, a brilliant turquoise, often associated with a lush tropical ocean setting, will be more exciting to the eye. The psychological association of a color is often more meaningful than the visual experience.

Colors act upon the body as well as the mind. Red has been shown to stimulate the senses and raise the blood pressure, while blue has the opposite effect and calms the mind. In fact, people will actually gamble more and make riskier bets when seated under a red light as opposed to a blue light. That’s why Las Vegas is the city of red neon.

Sometimes combinations of colors can deceive the viewer, sometimes in ways that work to your advantage. They can also cause unfortunate effects in your graphics that you should become aware of.

The background color of your website or blog, the colour of your header, text, headlines and sub-headlines etc. can all have a psychological impact on your visitors. Here is a list of some of the common colors and what type of psychological emotion they invoke in people:

RED is associated with love, passion, danger, warning, excitement, food, impulse, action, adventure.
BLUE is associated with trustworthiness, success, seriousness, calmness, power, professionalism.
GREEN is associated with money, nature, animals, health, healing, life, harmony.
ORANGE is associated with comfort, creativity, celebration, fun, youth, affordability.
PURPLE is associated with royalty, justice, ambiguity, uncertainty, luxury, fantasy, dreams.
WHITE is associated with innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity.
YELLOW is associated with curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, amusement.
PINK is associated with softness, sweetness, innocence, youthfulness, tenderness.
BROWN is associated with earth, nature, tribal, primitive, simplicity.
GREY is associated with neutralality, indifference, reserved.
BLACK is associated with seriousness, darkness, mystery, secrecy.

You can use the above as a guide when choosing colors for your website or blog. More information can be found at http://coyote.daria.be/colours. It really boils down to your target audience and what psychological message you want to convey in colors.

There are also numerous shades of the same color that you can use too. Here a link that lists 216 colors that work in all browsers: http://www.geocities.com/webtvbeth/hexchart.html , http://mensinghe.nl/colorDavid/index_8.html

COLOUR SELECTION TOOLS
Here are some interesting colour selection tools
hexidecimal colour chart HTML
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/color-blend/
http://colorschemer.com/online.html
http://ficml.awardspace.com/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html
http://websitetips.com/colortools/sitepro/
http://realcolorwheel.com/colorwheel.htm
for netscape – http://users.rcn.com/giant.interport/COLOR/ColorSpecifier.html

Tags: blogging, weblogs, websites, themes, templates, colour selection tools