[Fonc] Painting a virtual bike shed

[Casey Ransberger]

I'm working on a user interface which will most of the time be interacted
with by people who are in a state of distress. It's vital that the UI be as
calming as possible. I've gotten to the part where I have to choose colors
to put on the screen, and I've done a web search, but most of the links are
about interior decorating and don't exactly smack of science.

a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI

b) I'd like to read any good research out there

My gut says blue, green, or a combination would be best, but what
saturation to use? Etc.

TIA,

Casey Ransberger

[Julian Leviston]

This is a very difficult question to answer, because “to calm someone” is a manipulation, and this is a difficult one to achieve mechanically.

Your question assumes it’s possible to calm distressed people with colour. What if it’s only possible to distress them further?

Often when one is angry, for instance, things designed to mechanically calm anger one further. I don’t mean personally.

I would think it’s probably best to go for as neutral as possible.

http://www.creativecolorschemes.com/resources/free-color-schemes/neutral-color-scheme.shtml <http://www.creativecolorschemes.com/resources/free-color-schemes/neutral-color-scheme.shtml>

Julian

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I'm working on a user interface which will most of the time be interacted with by people who are in a state of distress. It's vital that the UI be as calming as possible. I've gotten to the part where I have to choose colors to put on the screen, and I've done a web search, but most of the links are about interior decorating and don't exactly smack of science.
a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI
b) I'd like to read any good research out there
My gut says blue, green, or a combination would be best, but what saturation to use? Etc.
TIA,
Casey Ransberger
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[Casey Ransberger]

More thoughts on this below my original message. I should have thought more
before clicking send.

Post by Casey Ransberger
I'm working on a user interface which will most of the time be interacted
with by people who are in a state of distress. It's vital that the UI be as
calming as possible. I've gotten to the part where I have to choose colors
to put on the screen, and I've done a web search, but most of the links are
about interior decorating and don't exactly smack of science.
a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI
b) I'd like to read any good research out there
My gut says blue, green, or a combination would be best, but what
saturation to use? Etc.
TIA,
Casey Ransberger

One of the things that makes this so hard to answer is that color
psychology seems to -- at least in part -- get rooted in culture, e.g. in
some places, white gets used to symbolize purity, whereas in others it
symbolizes death. A lot of the sites I'm looking at want to say "color is a
universal language," but I don't buy that for the reason I've just stated.
It's at best universal in local contexts. Or maybe "societal in-group"
contexts.

Parts of it might be. We all bleed red, and I've read that the color red
raises the heart rate as well as increasing appetite. I could see a
hypothetical evolutionary explanation for these observations that might
make reactions to red (specifically) universal. But a hypothetical doesn't
seem like a good place to stop.

I have seen too much language like "scientists agree" on these sites
without answering "who agreed?" or "what were their arguments, what were
their methods?" and not a single reference to anything concrete yet. So I
just click the next link, hoping it will lead somewhere rational.

Anyway it is kind of funny that I actually care what color the bike shed is
this time, isn't it?

:)

--Casey

[h***@heeg.de]

My first thought is that you might have an xy problem here. You probably don't need a perfect choice of color but just one that is good enough. Some subdued green or blue will be ok. Intuitive function of your UI, ease of access, consistent behavior, lack of aggravating bugs are much more important. Do you have these points covered already? If not, then spending time on scientific research of color psychology borders on procrastination :-)

Cheers,
Hans-Martin
Von meinem Android-GerÀt gesendet.

[K K Subbu]

Post by Casey Ransberger
a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI

I think you are on the right track here. UI requires focussed attention
while decoration would influence situational awareness. The ability to
handle detail is impaired under stress. If your idea is to let agitated
people complete a transaction as quickly as possible, it would be better
to go for simple form with minimal distractions (e.g. linear flow of
fields juxtaposed with help text).

Post by Casey Ransberger
b) I'd like to read any good research out there
My gut says blue, green, or a combination would be best, but what
saturation to use? Etc.

In your place, I would reach out to an artist or art school for help.
Affect is not based on logic but on overall perception. Dr. Vilayanur
Ramachandran speculates on the neurological basis of art appreciation in
a chapter in his book The Tell-Tale Brain. The book has good references
on recent research.

In your place, I would reach out to art school faculty or students for
help. They are trained to "see" beyond attentional blindness and
perceptional deficits and live the experience.

HTH .. Subbu

[Left Right]

This isn't a result of any research, it's just my experience as of
someone who studied art for his first major.

Making art is about finding patterns and then communicating those
patterns to your audience. In music this might be called harmony
theory, in visual arts this is typically referred to as "composition".
Choosing colors isn't enough (as, for example, it wouldn't be enough
to choose just the tones in music you also need to sequence them,
choose the tempo, dynamics etc.) I also don't believe this is a
universal language, no more than any natural language: one needs to
learn it (although most people are very capable of learning it) to
understand it.

Again, as per my experience, some people find comfort and seem to
relax when having very few objects in their sight, like, say, when
looking at the see on a calm day, while others seem to find comfort
when dealing with imagery which has a lot of details, s.a. complicated
ornaments or very detailed images of urban landscapes. It might look
like images that demand attention would be the antithesis of "calm",
but if you think about someone lost in the airport during connected
flight, then an image showing directions to their terminal would have
a very calming effect.

If I was faced with your problem, I would invest into having UI with
as little decorations as possible and with as few nesting levels as
possible. Text is best readable when its black on white background.
But this is about as specific as one can be.

Best.

Oleg

Post by K K Subbu

Post by Casey Ransberger
a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI

I think you are on the right track here. UI requires focussed attention
while decoration would influence situational awareness. The ability to
handle detail is impaired under stress. If your idea is to let agitated
people complete a transaction as quickly as possible, it would be better to
go for simple form with minimal distractions (e.g. linear flow of fields
juxtaposed with help text).

Post by Casey Ransberger
b) I'd like to read any good research out there
My gut says blue, green, or a combination would be best, but what
saturation to use? Etc.

In your place, I would reach out to an artist or art school for help. Affect
is not based on logic but on overall perception. Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran
speculates on the neurological basis of art appreciation in a chapter in his
book The Tell-Tale Brain. The book has good references on recent research.
In your place, I would reach out to art school faculty or students for help.
They are trained to "see" beyond attentional blindness and perceptional
deficits and live the experience.
HTH .. Subbu
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[Miles Fidelman]

Post by Casey Ransberger
I'm working on a user interface which will most of the time be
interacted with by people who are in a state of distress. It's vital
that the UI be as calming as possible. I've gotten to the part where I
have to choose colors to put on the screen, and I've done a web
search, but most of the links are about interior decorating and don't
exactly smack of science.
a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI
b) I'd like to read any good research out there

You didn't define what kind of "state of distress," or operating
conditions, but the military spends a lot of time studying how to design
interfaces for people who are working under extreme stress (piloting
fast-moving machinery, making decisions while getting shot at, that kind
of things). And a lot of the work extends into things like civil
aviation (pilots, air traffic controllers), and first responders (e.g.,
interfaces for folks who are "tired, dirty, and hungry" working under
dangerous conditions, while wearing cumbersome clothing - think fighting
wildfires).


For what it's worth... The folks at the Air Force Research Laboratory
(AFRL) used to do LOTS of work on GUI design for things like heads-up
displays for fighter pilots, and situation awareness for battle
management (e.g., how to display a complex, rapidly changing,
airspace). They got down to the nitty gritty of things like (virtual)
button size, shape, color - and lab testing of interactions with
interfaces. The Army does similar work.

It's been at least 15 years since I had any contact with that kind of
work - I don't know if they're still doing it, and if they are, which
groups are involved - but you might try:

- some googling of: AFRL "human factors"

- nosing around http://www.wpafb.af.mil/ - maybe starting here:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/afrl/711HPW/ - then make some calls (maybe start
with http://www.wpafb.af.mil/t2/ - the technology transfer folks)

- searching DTIC (http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/) - you'll find lots of old
research reports - some, some not so good, much of it old (but that
doesn't make it less valid) - for example, a simple search of DTIC,
using the keywords "gui human factors color stress" came up with these
3360 reports, starting with
Analysis of Human Factors Data for Electronic Flight Display Systems
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/884770.pdf
HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING DESIGN STANDARD FOR VEHICLE FIGHTING
COMPARTMENTS http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/691331.pdf
Human Factors Literature Relevant to Civil Aviation: A Guide for
Management and Design Engineers
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/722161.pdf
Going on to list reports covering a broad range fields and applications
in air, land, sea, and space.

You might then search some of the titles and authors in citeseer - that
might lead you to folks currently working in the field who might be
worth talking to.

At least, that's where I'd start. Depending on your application, you
might also make some calls to the folks at DHS S&T (DHS's R&D arm) -
they fund work on systems for first responders.

Miles Fidelman

[John Nilsson]

In the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" the authors summarize a lot of their
research into cognitive biases. You might want to have a look at it.
For example I remember that they talk about how legibility of fonts can
influence your tendency to believe what is written.

One take away in particular, IIRC, is that you might not actually want to
go for "as calming as possible" there might be some inverse correlation
between calming and rationality of the user. So if you require some
critical thinking and decision making from the user some level of stress
might actually be a good thing.

BR,
John

Post by Casey Ransberger
I'm working on a user interface which will most of the time be interacted
with by people who are in a state of distress. It's vital that the UI be as
calming as possible. I've gotten to the part where I have to choose colors
to put on the screen, and I've done a web search, but most of the links are
about interior decorating and don't exactly smack of science.
a) not sure that what works for decorating will necessarily work for UI
b) I'd like to read any good research out there
My gut says blue, green, or a combination would be best, but what
saturation to use? Etc.
TIA,
Casey Ransberger
_______________________________________________
Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org