Color Symbolism vs. Wayfinding

April 12, 2004 at 12:54 PM

Didier suggests that we should say "SuperfluousBanter: To Hell with Color Coding." While I agree with a lot of what he is saying here but I have to disagree with the overall point that we shouldn't use color coding because it conflicts with the brand and meaning of the color. Does Adobe want to say "stop" or "danger" when they use red on their site? Does HP? How about Xerox or Coke? Does IBM want to communicate "cold" on their site because they used blue? How about Microsoft? Ok so, yes, color conveys meaning (on a symbolic level) but I don't think that is what the average user identifies with. Color also means different things to people in different cultures. Users often relate color to association and not to symbolism as Didier suggest. User testing can go a long ways to showing you how your site?s actual users will relate to the color.