Sometimes the ‘ivory tower thinking’ of my own usability profession amazes me. HFI are a very serious, very formal and by all accounts very good process and methodology driven company, so what has driven them to a World Usability Day Color Survey?
“Color is one of the most important non-verbal forms of communication. Appropriate use of color greatly impacts user experience. We are conducting a short survey to understand color associations for different kinds of Web sites.”
Indeed. But is this real world stuff? The Wharton School of Business has done some very interesting and complex research on color. But this seems a tad simplistic. Wouldn’t it be silly if all banks had blue logos, and all news (and electronics) was red!
How would HSBC, for example, feel if the Usability Lab results came back that the HSBC shade of logo red just wasn’t thought to be associated with banking, but was seen by users to be much more indicative of beauty and personal grooming? Would that lead to HSBC to change its logo? Or convince the HSBC board to consider a new corporate future as a L’Oreal competitor?
(…with apologies to HSBC)
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