Employing Hues for Clarity: Aiding Users by Minimizing Perplexity
Guiding Users Astray with Color: The Art of Deception in Design
Color plays a pivotal role in user interfaces, offering an opportunity to steer users effectively towards successful task completion. However, some designers, driven by corporate greed rather than user-centric design, turn color into a bewildering maze, hiding crucial information and buttons. Here's a look at how the misuse of color can leave users baffled and frustrated.
Consider the example of the following old email newsletter message. Its color scheme could easily disorient the user, making unsubscribing a labyrinthine task:
Grey font against a subtly lighter grey background makes the text virtually impossible to read. The "subscription settings" text, underlined but styled similar to regular text, may not be recognized as a link. Designers neglecting the established convention of using blue, underlined text for inline links create such confusion.
Dark Patterns: An Underhanded Trick
Color is a pre-attentive attribute, helping us differentiate items and glean information quickly. Unfortunately, pairing specific colors leads to unreadability and confusion, causing problems in two ways:
- Insufficient Text Contrast: Text that doesn't stand out against the background is hard to read. Users will have a tough time locating the text, even after discovering it.
- Confusing Link Colors: When link colors match regular text, users are unlikely to distinguish clickable links, often overlooking crucial information. It's like wearing camouflage, deceiving the user's eye, and brain.
A designer skilled in manipulating visual cues can draw users' focus to specific elements, prompting actions or steering them away from necessary information, often referred to as fine print.
"Color does not improve design—it strengthens it."—Pierre Bonnard, French painter, and a founding member of Les Nabis
A monotone background requires users to focus more on reading the text. This covert method is an underhanded tactic for hiding information from users, much like writing with a faded highlighter.
There are also designers who intentionally making finding certain options difficult while not hiding them entirely. For example, placing unsubscribe commands in unusual positions or adding unnecessary steps to the process. Consider an opt-out checkbox requiring users to consciously mark it, or an auto-subscribe option hidden within unchecked boxes. A designer can set the default option to auto-subscribe users by clicking 'OK' without giving the option to uncheck the subscription box, taking advantage of low contrast to inadvertently subscribe users to unwanted services.
Color can also highlight desirable subscriptions or deals, acting as an innocent ally. However, it’s important to consider users with color blindness, particularly those with red-green impairments, when making color choices. Ethical considerations such as accessibility and user outcomes should always be balanced against these aesthetic decisions. With careful color selection, a designer can subtly nudge users towards conversion without resorting to deception.
The Final Verdict
A well-chosen color palette enhances the usability of an interface, making relevant content easily accessible. However, when designers intentionally mislead users to support corporate agendas, they use low contrast colors and indistinguishable links to influence user behavior surreptitiously. As designers, it's crucial to prioritize transparency and user satisfaction over corporate gain, ensuring a positive experience for all parties involved.
References and Further Learning
Hero Image: © Unsplash, CC0.
Jenifer Tidwell, Designing Interfaces: Patterns and Best Practices for Interaction Design*, 2010
Martijn van Welie, Pattern Library, 2008
Harry Brignull’s website dedicated to dark patterns.
- Inept use of color in interaction design, such as low contrast and indistinguishable links, can obscure crucial information and buttons, creating a labyrinthine user experience that frustrates users.
- To prioritize transparency and user satisfaction, designers should consider the accessibility of their color choices, ensuring they cater to users with color vision deficiencies, thereby avoiding deception in the guise of well-chosen color palettes.
