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Color, Contrast and Detail
All should convey information...
By: David K. Every
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2002-04-02 00:00:00
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 Never count on color...
The first thing to learn about color is that not all people see it -- in fact many don't (there are millions of people who are colorblind to some degree). To make matters worse, monitors and televisions are really bad at "repeatability" (keeping colors the same across displays). So red on one screen may be orange or ruddy on another screen. NTSC, the video (television) standard used by all north American televisions, is jokingly said to stand for "Never-the-Same-Color". Computers are a little better; but not much.
So you can only use color to add MORE information, but don't use it as the only way to convey information. If something displays necessary information using color, there should be another backup method for conveying this same information like by using texture, symbols, text, or contrast.
Compare the following:
Notice that if you are a Windows95/98 user, and you are color blind, it is very hard to differentiate which window is the "active" window. Much more so when you have many windows open. The only difference between active and inactive is that the active window uses color (blue). When you don't see color, there is very little difference in contrast. And this is one of the best color schemes (the default). Many others are worse.
Now look at the Mac:
Notice that if you are a Mac user, and you are color blind, it is very easy to differentiate which window is the "active" window. Apple uses window texture, contrast, and the state of the controls to also differentiate active from de-active windows. Color accents things, or highlights things (like drawing the users attention to the active controls) -- but color is not the only way that information is conveyed to the user.
Now look at the OS X:
Sadly, MacOS X has unlearned much of what the Mac users knew. If you look at OS X, you see that it is nearly as bad as Windows, and in some ways, worse. The window title actually varies because titlebar is semi-translucent, but it is damn unreadable and very low contrast and clarity all of the time. There's even a mode to make us all feel colorblind and use a non-colored mode.
There are no shapes or detail for the controls (by default). If you "roll over" them with your mouse, then you get some non-sensible shapes, but they aren't there at a glance. And the only difference between the controls look is the soft pastel colors. This is the "how not to" of good user interface.
At first, I wanted to give it a chance, and see how much it mattered in the real world. After using Aqua (the look/feel of OSX) for a couple years, I still lose which is the active window or controls -- it just basically works worse.
            
Another example of color (contrast) choice, can be seen in the following:
Most pages are white, with black text. So when Apple created their cursor, they made it high contrast black (high contrast compared to the white page). Then Apple put a white border around it, so that you would still be able to see it on a black background. Fortunately, OSX didn't change anything.
When Microsoft stole Apple's cursor (bit for bit) the only change they made was to invert it. As usual, where they diverged from Apple is how they made the interface worse. The white cursor on a white page (the normal display) is far harder to see, and a worse use of color (contrast). After 20+ years to fix this mistake, I'm left wondering how much longer until they "get it".
       
The point is that the ideas of color and contrast go way beyond applying just to the colorblind. All of our eyes see contrast better than color.
Look at the following:
It should be immediately obvious that contrast and detail are far more important than color (for readability). So all the points about color and contrast (and Apple's better use of them) go to overall clarity and usability of interface. The human eye like contrast and detail as well as color to convey information; but color can augment that detail.
Another example of "how not to" can be seen in dialogs and their controls. On Mac dialogs and controls all use high-contrast shades with accent colors. Win95 decided on using low contrasting gray on gray: which they stole from NeXT, poorly. The results are that Windows is often confusing, low-contrasting, and harder to read.
There are still other issues with color, but you should have a basic understanding of the Do's and Don't about color -- with the Mac usually showing the "Do's" and Windows usually exemplifying the "Do not's". And OSX often following the Windows way more than the Mac way.
OSX is consistent, but it is consistently poor. It sacrifices contrast and readability, for sexy looking low contrast transparency effects. While this looks good at first glance, it is a pain to use for every other glance. So I feel that Aqua makes some wrong tradeoffs on color.
So when it comes to understanding Color, Contrast and Detail; and using it properly (for interface). Now you, I, and the old Apple people, all "get it". Microsoft and the new decision makers at Apple do not.
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