WEBVTT 00:00:07.920 --> 00:00:13.875 Why do we see color? Designers intuitively  know the answer to this question: 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:21.731 It's to help us distinguish one thing from  another and even to understand the thing itself. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:30.533 And what I mean by that is if you're looking at  someone's face and they look very pale, 00:00:30.533 --> 00:00:38.813 maybe with a yellow cast or a blue cast, we might understand that that person is sick or something is wrong; 00:00:38.813 --> 00:00:45.000 or, we're looking at a series of tomatoes, 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:52.900 each one more ripe than the next – we are clued in to when the tomato is ready to eat. 00:00:52.967 --> 00:00:57.734 Maybe we're looking at a subway map and we see that each line 00:00:57.760 --> 00:01:02.407 is a different color, helping us to understand 00:01:02.407 --> 00:01:06.948 which line we want to go on and where we want to go to. 00:01:06.948 --> 00:01:12.914 Along with shape, texture, movement, darkness and lightness, 00:01:12.914 --> 00:01:20.278 the more color that we could see, the more we could interpret about the world around us. 00:01:20.278 --> 00:01:28.101 By using color, designers are giving people a shorthand for how to use the products that they are designing. 00:01:28.198 --> 00:01:35.029 For example, if you are designing a pill bottle with pills inside, 00:01:35.029 --> 00:01:41.611 the color of the bottle and the color of the pills themselves can distinguish not only from other pills 00:01:41.611 --> 00:01:46.722 that someone might be taking but even different dosages between them. 00:01:46.722 --> 00:01:52.400 Things like a traffic light, which, sure we could memorize what 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:59.127 the order of the traffic light is, but having *color on top of order* gives us 00:01:59.127 --> 00:02:04.492 an incredibly quick and easy mechanism 00:02:04.492 --> 00:02:08.883 for our brain to understand what to do next. 00:02:08.883 --> 00:02:12.305 Even things like sports uniforms – 00:02:12.305 --> 00:02:20.560 the reason that we have different colors for different  uniforms is that it gives fans that immediate clue 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:28.391 as to what to do when someone runs down one side  of a field or another: do we cheer or do we boo? 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:33.490 Just as important to the question of "Why do we see color?" is: 00:02:33.490 --> 00:02:39.407 Why do we not see all the colors that are in our vision at once? 00:02:39.407 --> 00:02:43.334 And I'm not talking about ultraviolet or infrared or colors 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:47.112 outside of the ability of our color vision. 00:02:47.112 --> 00:02:52.846 I'm talking about when we look at, for example, a red house and 00:02:52.846 --> 00:02:56.754 one side is in shadow and one side is in light; 00:02:56.754 --> 00:03:01.992 we're not seeing that house as partly dark red and partly pink. 00:03:01.992 --> 00:03:07.242 We are just seeing it as a red house, and there's a very good reason for that. 00:03:07.242 --> 00:03:14.960 Just as I don't feel every sensation that is  happening to my body every minute, like my glasses 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:21.190 on the bridge of my nose – I'm not thinking about that until I actually think about it. 00:03:21.190 --> 00:03:27.187 My feet on the floor, that sensation – I'm not aware of it until I bring my mind to it, 00:03:27.187 --> 00:03:31.939 and throughout my body, there are all kinds of sensations going on all at once; 00:03:31.939 --> 00:03:37.774 but it would be too much for the brain to be thinking about those things *all the time* 00:03:37.774 --> 00:03:44.168 on top of all the other sensations that we have, one of which is the light that is entering our eyes. 00:03:44.168 --> 00:03:51.000 So, if we were to register the millions of colors that are coming into our eyes all at once, 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:56.257 our brain would just shut down; it would be too much; we wouldn't be able to make our way through the world, 00:03:56.257 --> 00:03:59.997 to make decisions, to move – all of these things. 00:03:59.997 --> 00:04:05.546 So, this becomes very important for designing because we have to decide 00:04:05.546 --> 00:04:10.993 what we want the *focus* of people's attention to be. 00:04:10.993 --> 00:04:16.677 If we go back to this idea that color gives us information to help interpret the world, 00:04:16.724 --> 00:04:21.000 then we have to think about: "How are we using color 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:27.594 so that it is giving us the right information to give us the right interpretation?" 00:04:27.594 --> 00:04:34.801 So, too much color, too much sensation, and then what follows we call *perception* – what we're actually 00:04:34.801 --> 00:04:38.451 perceiving – can be confusing. 00:04:38.451 --> 00:04:42.747 Too little color might not give us enough information. 00:04:42.747 --> 00:04:47.111 We also take our clues about color 00:04:47.111 --> 00:04:51.204 from the *culture* where we live. 00:04:51.204 --> 00:04:55.669 So, for example, in the Western world, 00:04:55.669 --> 00:05:02.575 yellow is not a color that is particularly beloved, but in the Eastern world, it is. 00:05:02.615 --> 00:05:10.160 So, the messaging that comes with the colors that you choose depend on *who* is receiving that color. 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:17.040 We also have very personal associations with color  which make it hard for designers because we don't   00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:23.332 know – unless we're designing for one person – what  each person's reaction to a color is going to be. 00:05:23.440 --> 00:05:31.223 And lastly, we have these *biological reactions* to  color, which at this point we know very, very little about. 00:05:31.223 --> 00:05:36.998 So, when you go on the internet and you read, for example, that peach makes you hungry, the color peach, 00:05:36.998 --> 00:05:43.085 well, we don't know that at all – that's just a bunch of internet fake news. 00:05:43.085 --> 00:05:48.000 But we do know certain things about blue light, for example, 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:54.258 or about the color red, and there are associations – biological – 00:05:54.400 --> 00:06:00.379 rooted in our biology in these colors that  have an effect on us. 00:06:00.379 --> 00:06:04.910 But taken together with the cultural and the personal, 00:06:04.910 --> 00:06:09.760 there's lots and lots of clues that are being given to a person, 00:06:09.760 --> 00:06:16.168 and these have to be accounted for in the design  process – maybe not the personal part, 00:06:16.168 --> 00:06:21.888 but certainly the biological – the little that we know – and the cultural piece of it. 00:06:21.888 --> 00:06:28.290 So, to sum this up, why do we see color? We see color to help give us information 00:06:28.290 --> 00:06:32.017 so that we can make our way through the world 00:06:32.017 --> 00:06:37.466 without harming ourselves and hopefully with helping ourselves. 00:06:37.466 --> 00:06:42.882 And color is this extraordinary tool, and it's one with a very fine point. 00:06:42.882 --> 00:06:49.407 It's one that was developed late in the development of the human brain. 00:06:49.407 --> 00:06:54.330 It is not essential to our being alive; 00:06:54.330 --> 00:06:57.440 take color-blind people, for example, 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:08.533 but it's one that gives us the opportunity to be  able to navigate quickly, easily and often with joy.