SMART COLORS

Design Statement: Design a solution to increase awareness of color psychology principles, aid better understanding of color emotions and help creatives use colors to create the right impact, keeping color accessibility in mind all along

My role: Performed extensive research and applied user-centred design principles to create an interactive, inclusive, and intelligent color tool

Duration: Sep 2018 to April 2019

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, XD, After Effects, Premiere Pro, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, InVision

INTRODUCTION

The process of creating this tool involved diving deep into color concepts to understand the psychology and emotion of each color. A data set was created to map the relation between each unique emotion to a respective color. This tool is unique as it explains the reason, significance and associations of colors in the required context, which other online color tools do not, as they only generate random color palettes. This tool will aid the understanding of color psychology principles as well as provide a customized color palette for venturing brands to create the right impression for their target users.

Research Links

I find it very interesting to understand the different interpretation of each color, the underlying emotion that each color evokes and how it makes us feel. My interest in this area grew when 2 years ago, I worked on a color forecasting project called ColorNext. I am also amazed at the influence of colors on our actions, decisions and behaviours.

Color Accessibility

Color accessibility is extremely important as there are about 300 million people in the world who suffer from different kinds of color blindness. This is about 4.5% of the world’s population and a very significant number of people. My research into color blindness started by looking at the causes for the deficiency, types of impairment, problems and challenges faced by colorblind people, experience with the deficiency, effect on emotions, existing solutions in the market to assist them in their daily life and work, digital and accessible solutions and possible interventions to ease the struggles faced. Thus, I decided to take an inclusive design approach in my design solution to help the users of this tool help people with color blindness.

Color in Branding

Color plays a major role in branding. A lot of brands fail because they are unable to create the right impression on customers – and those that are successful often make effective use of colors for their brand identity. While looking into branding, I learnt that a lot of brands majorly failed in their re-branding efforts and it costs them millions of dollars! The new Gap logo was ridiculed to the extent that the company brought back the old logo in just a week. Also studies reveal that a signature color can boost brand recognition by 80% as seen in the case of the Airbnb rebranding.

The secondary research process began by reading various journals, articles, dissertations, and performing literature review with published papers. Based on an extensive search within the NYU libraries and the New School Design Library, I found a wide collection of resources related to the topic of Color Blindness and Color Psychology. By reading reference books on color and going through published papers and online articles, I developed a strong foundation on different areas from Color Harmony to Color Perception. I also understood how each color has a fascinating story and the significance of its own.

Expert Insights

By speaking to different people in the industry, I received insights about the troubles color blind people encounter with digital mediums. I also learned about the influence of colors and the role of color in branding and design from creatives in the field.

User Research

When I asked people these two questions, I received a range of responses with different reasons. It was very interesting to see how people associated emotions with color!

The insights from research helped me understand the problem at hand by analyzing the emerging issues and gaps and thus establish my intent for the project and follow a user-centered design process for the solution.

Emerging Issues and Gaps

1. 1. 1. None of the existing color tools explains why certain colors should be used in specific contexts for better impact
      2. There is a need for a universal color resource which helps create awareness about color emotions and color psychology
      3. Early brands often fail in creating the right brand identity to establish themselves in the market
      4. Designers often need verification and reasons for choosing color palettes
      5. Educational, engaging interactions will create a better understanding of color theory and style guides

Initial Sketch

Here is an initial sketch which lays out the foundation of the 3 step process.

I proceeded to create a paper prototype which explored in more detail the process to receive input about user preferences and requirement by asking questions about the industry, company vision and so on.

Color Data Set

Next, I created a data set by selecting ten color buckets and listing words and emotions associated with the energy of each color. After going through a set of trusted resources and established references, I synthesizing my findings and prioritized the words which were reoccurring and mapped them to each color.

User Feedback

The complete user feedback has been recorded and can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J1I_OWDBPSkCOX-XaKYfDeBirYdA4N8C/view?usp=sharing

Some statistics of the user feedback received were as follows – 90% users felt the flow made sense, 70% of users found the questions to be helpful and 80% users found the results page to be beneficial in some way.

User Validation

I also spoke to experts in the field and tested my prototype concepts with them. Jordan, the Director at Dynamichrome validated the need for this tool. Shweta who is a color strategist and psychologist said there is a definite need in the market for this concept. Leah, the Creative Director at Color Factory agreed that it has a lot of potential for a variety of users.

Programmed Flow

Next, I programmed the logic for the flow by creating web pages and providing the data set as the main database of the code. The technical components included using React as the main framework along with Javascript Version 6 and Parcel application bundler. The algorithm allowed the user to choose two options for the first two questions and resulted in generating the exact shades of the color, the swatch and the name. As we can see here, the tool allows you to choose any two options for each question and shows the respective colors. You can go back and change your choices and see two new colors generated.

Prototype 3.0 – Working Product

For the final prototype, I iterated on the earlier prototype screens to make the flow more streamlined, included more features and made it dynamic by allowing the user to generate different results based on the selected input.

The concept of the tool was also used in establishing the brand identity of startups like Sportified, a sports academy and established companies like Virkar Developers, a real estate and construction company. The proposed color guide was much appreciated by the owners and influenced all their social media marketing and website design efforts.

Next Steps

1. 1. 1. 1. Map out the results for all the ten industries and then for other sub-industries as well
         2. Figure out the development scenario and logic for the entire working of the tool
         3. Include an option to see customized color palettes for print work as well
         4. Give font recommendations and provide text accessibility as well
         5. Show examples of websites, locations and products for better relation to color palettes
         6. Try mapping multiple adjectives into one word so there is more depth of the analysis
         7. Allow the user to be able to accommodate using an existing logo or website
         8. Continue testing with more companies and individuals for concrete feedback