11.5 Color

• Soothe or strike the eye
• Add accents to an uninteresting display
• Facilitate subtle discriminations in complex displays
• Emphasize the logical organization of information
• Draw attention to warnings
• Evoke string emotional reactions of joy, excitement, fear, or anger

• Use color conservatively
• Limit the number and amount of colors
• Recognize the power of color to speed or slow tasks
• Color coding should support the task
• Color coding should appear with minimal user effort
• Color coding should be under user control
• Design for monochrome first
• Color can help in formatting
• Be consistent in color coding
• Be alert to common expectations about color codes
• Use color changes to indicate status changes
• Use color in graphic displays for greater information density