CONTRIBUTOR: Shahjahan Alhassan - 13th Oct 2001

Before a system designer can decide upon which colours to use, there are certain properties of colours which should be considered. Some are sad, others cheerful and stimulating. Some are formal and even irritating to many people. We are affected by colours more than we realise, thus in order to deliver a system that evokes a positive response from the user, the emotional associations of colours should be examined. Horton et al (1994) have determined the following relationships with colour:

	Red is the most dominant colour, it evokes an immediate response. It is stimulating, exciting. It is associated with fire, blood, violence, anger, warmth, extroversion, crudeness, optimism, danger and shame.
	Orange expresses friendliness, congeniality, warmth, pride, and gregariousness.
	Yellow is associated with the sun, warmth, being sickly, fields, cowardice, caution, and is one of the most easily seen colours by the eye.
	Green conjures feelings of the supernatural, harmony, freshness, progress, peace, envy, jealousy, grass. It is a natural colour that can be connected with life (fertility) and death (decay), growth, greed, nausea, and poison.
	Blue is a cool colour, one that is sedative, relaxing, dreamy, and calm, though it can be a sad, lonesome colour. Take for instance the style of music known as the Blues.
	Purple is related to vanity, wit, nostalgia, spirituality, resignation, and regret.
	Brown is said to have the qualities of duty, parsimony, reliability, earthiness, barrenness, and poverty.
	Black is associated with death, darkness, grief, fear, melancholy, despair, dignity, sin, negation, the devil, and it is also a powerful colour.
	Grey is considered to be a neutral colour, one that represents restraint, barrenness, grief, indifference, and maturity.
	White stands for purity, safety, cleanliness, unity, even the feeling of death, e.g. in a hospital. It also expresses innocence, wisdom, truth, coldness, and ghostliness.

Colour has the ability to arouse emotion, it affects blood circulation and pressure, muscular strength, respiration rate, brainwave activity, and even electrical conductance of the skin.

Physiological aspects such as increased and decreased respiratory movement and human blink rate with the colour red and blue respectively, are important to the designer (Russell, 1991). A system using the colour red in abundance, in a highly stressful working environment is not recommended.


People have access to two types of colour associations, personal and collective. Age, gender, mood and personal experience influence personal colour associations. Whereas collective colour associations are more likely to be influenced by cultural conventions and established traditions. Pinpointing selections of colours which evoke particular responses in the thoughts and feelings of the designer and the end-user is an important element in design. Shape, size, pattern, and texture are also important contributors to the overall effect, coupled with the intuitions of the designer and awareness of past, present, and predicted trends.

Colours and their combinations thereby induce associative meanings that may have little to do with direct visual experience. Berry and Martin (1991) have drawn up a list of colour associations around the world including those of a sensitive nature:

• France: Red is masculine, whereas to the rest of the world blue is masculine.
• Holland: Avoid using Germany's national colours (yellow, black and red).
• Ireland: Green and orange should be used with care.
• Sweden: Combinations of white and blue (their national flag) are best avoided.
• Turkey: A green triangle signifies a free sample.
• Buddhist countries: Yellow indicates priest.
• The East: Yellow means plenty. Yellow and pink together indicate pornography.
• Ivory Coast: Dark red indicates death q Latin America: Purple indicates death.
• Muslim countries: Green is a religious colour and should be used with care.
• Arab countries: Avoid using a green cross. Green has Muslim connotations and should be used with care.

Each family of colours has negative and positive associations that obviously vary according to where they are used. Likewise, combinations of colours can lead to various meanings depending on how they are used.


The way that colours are contained can alter the impression they make. Different shapes and edges therefore affect the way that we perceive different colours, and can be manipulated to reinforce a particular message or to contradict it.

The shapes created by letter forms in typography are an important factor in legibility. Colours need to be combined in the right amount to enable the user to instantly pick up information.


Within a design the proportion of colours used and their relationship to each other is equally important. We perceive colours differently, depending on which colours are adjacent. Dark colours give the feeling of weightiness, and stability. Even proportions of colours have a passive effect, while strongly contrasting colours produce a more active impression. To reassure the user that the system they are using is reliable and to inspire confidence, a combination of dark contrasting colours could deliver this impression.