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Subject:Re: Using Color in GUI and Online Help From:Sue Heim <SUE -at- RIS -dot- RISINC -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 15 Mar 1995 09:22:10 PST
Dan Wensel asked:
> We are developing software in a Windows environment and are at a roadblock
> with regard
> to certain field attributes. The windows we are creating follow Windows
> standards with regard to gray background, white boxes, black labels, etc.
> However, we want to distinguish mandatory fields and fields that have been
> edited on certain windows. We've investigated a number of ways to do this,
> but so far, we keep coming back to color as a solution.
We don't distinguish between mandatory and optional fields in one of
our programs -- but we do pop a message stating that a field must be
entered if the user tries to accept the info in the dialog box if the
field is empty. I think a large part of your question also concerns
your users. In our industry, we still have quite a few people who
don't have the way-cool computers with color... in their B&W world,
color isn't gonna do them much good! (Yes, it's true, some of our
customers even still use 286's... gasp!!)
> Also, we'd like to hear about any experiences anyone's had using color in
> online Help. What colors did you use? What was the reaction? Did any of
> your users state a preference for a particular color scheme? Did you find
> that any colors just did not work? What recommendations would you make?
Be very careful with using color. I used color in both the scrolling
and non-scrolling regions (non-scrolling was a dark blue/scrolling
was a light yellow) with black type. I didn't specify the type as
being black -- the color was set to "auto." What happened is that we
had one user who just totally loved that Hot Dog color setting in the
Win CP (no offense to anyone else, but majorly yucky colors!!). At
any rate, when he popped up my help, he couldn't read it. The black
type, because it was auto, became white. And because I had set a
light yellow background, he had white type on light yellow and
couldn't read it. Since then I specify the colors of ALL elements.
None of our customers have complained, or really even commented. Our
wonderful programming staff did, however. (Something about being
anal, and not wanting to be different than any other WIN program...
not really sure what their real reason was, but I did color anyways!)
Good luck!
Sue Heim
Research Information Systems
Email: Sue -at- ris -dot- risinc -dot- com
