Use of Color

• Color is emotional

• Psychological and cultural

• Physiological: some colors excite neurons in the brain more than others (red)

• Color is good for segmentation (grouping)

• Reduce the amount of time to search for information

• Too many colors can increase search time

• Color is good for drawing attention

• Color should be used as redundant coding

• 10% of the male population has some form of color deficiency or color confusion

• Blue is difficult to focus

• Good for backgrounds, bad for small areas, thin fonts, narrow lines