Re: thoughts on color

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

At 11:45 AM 12/29/98 -0500, Gil Yaker wrote:
>Hey all
>I'm curious of everyone's  thoughts on the following:
>
>What do you think about the use of color in informational documents?

Oh! Now /there's/ a loaded question!  ;-)

In general, you can sum up my answer in the phrase "not much!"

Specifically:

Marlana Coe, in the "Human Factors Jeopardy" she presents at STC
conferences, says that the use of full color in a paper document
can attract /too/ much attention, detracting from the message
rather than adding to it.

Jared Spool's research on web design finds that graphics don't add
to a site's usability and, taking it a step farther, animations are
distracting.

From what I've seen, for every paper manual that uses spot color
well there are at least ten that use it poorly. I can't begin to
recount the number of interviews I've been on... <set scene>
I'm interviewing to create a doc department for a growing company
because the admin assistant or the program architect no longer has
time to handle the docs and their own job. They're untrained and
untalented and I don't want to say they're /uninterested/, exactly,
but they certainly wouldn't dream of changing careers, but they've
managed to put together the doc set for the first release of the
product and they are justifyably proud. They /beam/ as they show me
the result of their sweat and tears and say,

   "...and then I decided to make all the screen shots green
    too because I just /love/ the color!"

or,

   "I just decided to make /all/ the text blue in the online
    help because it looks so much /friendlier/ to me! So, then
    I got rid of that yucky green..."

</scene>

...you see what I mean!

Mind you, I'm not saying that all color is bad. Color, when used
well, can be an important cueing technique but there must be
redundant cueing to account for color blindness or difficulty with
distribution media (monochrome monitor, photocopies,...). And color
is difficult to do well, to say the least.

Despite the interviews I mentioned, I've never inherited a spot-
color manual, nor have I ever had the opportunity to create a manual
with spot color. (I've learned that the words "...and we may have
enough money next year to add a little color to the manual!" as
harbingers of ill fortune.<g>) I used to want to do one, but we
all grow up eventually.  ;-) And my html docs offer little in the
way of color -- just a two color separator bar between major
headings and some screen shots.

Now, in marketing pieces... /That's/ a different story.

So, yeah... What do I think of adding color for color's sake?
Not much.

Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=