Color
Psychology
Learn how to build color palettes that command user attention, speed-up task completion, and evoke the right emotions. Our color psychology guide covers color theory, the psychology of color and practical applications for interactive design and UXD.
By Brian Cugelman, PhD, Rena Cugelman & Friends
Introduction
When it comes to the strategic use of color in interactive design, wouldn’t it be great if you could always select colors that make your technology more intuitive and emotionally pleasing?
Many barriers that stop designers from using color strategically. In an attempt to overcome these barriers, I’ll explain the essential concepts in light and color perception, go over psychological explanations for cognitive and emotional associations to color, and then get into strategic applications.
The AlterSpark team and I authored this book to help digital media pros boost their knowledge and skills in applying color psychology.
As a specialist in applying psychology to technology, I’m going to take you through the topic from the perspective of using color to achieve attentive, cognitive, emotional and behavioral impacts.
This online guide is a short form with the most important lessons. If you want to dive deeper, check out the full book.
Let’s roll…
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank so many of my students, who kept pushing me for more and more color psychology content. Rena Cugelman developed all the graphics, carried out supplemental research on accessible design, and did a wonderful job coming up with ways to translate the scientific figures into intuitive color charts.
Jesse Ship helped strike the right editorial tone, and give this book a great editorial swank. Tryston Hoyes did an amazing job developing painful chromostereopsis images, under my guidance, which went something like this, “Tryston, I wanted my eyes to burn”.
Finally, I want to thank Joshua Jia and Shanelle Mullin for helping to get the word out.
