My project began back in September when I chose to explore the topics of colour theory and psychology. I started researching the impact that colour has on an individual, being interested to see how colour is perceived by people and the impact that they feel it has upon their life. Interestingly there is no hard evidence to prove that colour has a psychological effect on people. What is more common is for people to interpret colours depending on their cultural background.
To illustrate this point and to show how complex and varied these interpretations can be, there is a small table below listing a selection of colours and some of the objects and values they can be associated with.
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It is clear to see from the table above that colour association is a very individual experience. I did not find this particularly surprising but it did make me think about the consequences it could have for my project. If i was to start working with colour, rather than being prescriptive and telling people how to experience colour, it would be much more effective to create a more open user experience.
While researching colour theory i also found it interesting the way that colours mix and the spread of the colour spectrum. I discovered the difference between additive and subtractive colour mixing, which would prove very important if i was going to try and create a range of colours for my users experience. When mixing colours in a physical sense (ink, paint, oils) light is absorbed. This can be displayed in the mixing of the three primary colours red, green and blue (RGB) to create a dark brown/grey/black. However when coloured lights are mixed the result is quite different. The mixing of any two primary colours in equal measure will produce the secondary colours (cyan, magenta and yellow) and the combination of all three primary colours produces bright white.
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I felt it very important to understand the differences involved as I did not yet know how i would eventually end up employing colour in my project. I found it interesting to see the difference between additive and subtractive colour theory and peoples perception of colour. However, i was aware that i would have to do a lot more research and creative thinking to begin forming potential ideas for my full project.
Technology is frequently accused as being the main culprit, or at least a factor in causing stress. As we become a more technology driven society, surrounding ourselves with gadgets and computers we seem likely to make our own lives more and more stressful. I was interested to see what examples there are of technology being used to combat stress and encourage relaxation. More specifically I wanted to see if there were any examples focussed on visual elements and sight.
One of the first products I came across was the sound and light machine, also known as Audio Visual Stimulation (AVS) devices. These combine audio and visual stimulation to help users relax, resulting in similar experiences to meditation. However, the medical and scientific theory used to back up such devices is largely unreliable and they are classed under alternative medicine. Though sceptical about the application of such a product, and the validity of claims that they can be used for healing, I found them a useful starting point for my research.
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Here was an example that, although primarily sound based with visual back-up, demonstrated that eyewear could be used in promoting a relaxed state involving colour. It would have been interesting to try and acquire one of these products and explore exactly how it works, however at a starting price of £99 this seemed slightly excessive. Despite AVS devices being unreliable in their claims of healing and promoting a relaxed state, they proved very valuable in helping me visualise certain aspects of my project. These devices showed me that visual and lighting technology could be effectively used on a scale as small as a pair of glasses. This would prove a very important part of my project as it developed over time.
Another example of visually relaxing technology I researched were Snoezelen or Multi-sensory stimulation rooms. These are rooms filled with various products to stimulate the senses through sound, light, colour, music, texture and scent. They are created to help people with mental disabilities and can be found worldwide, usually set up by charities and hospices dedicated to caring for such individuals. I was interested to see the various ways that they used colour and light to help promote a relaxing atmosphere in the rooms. These ranged from bubble tubes, fibre optics, coloured gel lanterns projected on to the walls and ultra violet lights amongst others.
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Although mainly aimed at helping those who suffer from autism and other mental disabilities, I found them a very interesting topic to investigate and found common link with research I had done on colour psychology earlier. Snoezelen did not employ specific colours in any areas to promote certain emotions or reactions, but were simply there to create stimulus and let each individual user interpret as they wished.
This seemed an important point, even early on in my project. It would be almost impossible to try and create a set of colours to match a range of emotions from different users. It seemed more logical to simply give the users as wide a range of colour as possible and let them experience them in their own individual way. However I still had no idea what sort of product I was potentially going to make, only a number of qualities I felt it should aim for.
Examples of other areas I looked at for inspiration and understanding include:
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This research helped me understand various aspects of the issues relating to colour and technology in relation to stress. I felt it important however to explore the reactions of users towards colour and stress and started to explore potential methods for doing so. This led me to create Colour packs.
I was looking for a way to get feedback from individuals on their thoughts on colour and its relations to stress or relaxation. I looked in to a number of techniques that I could use for my requirements gathering such as questionnaires and observation, but these seemed limited and did not yield enough personal response/thought. I eventually discovered the idea of cultural probes and decided to investigate further. These seemed to be much more appropriate for the task that I was undertaking.
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As I explored the idea of cultural probes I discovered them to be potentially very useful for the type of requirements gathering I was in need of. I liked that they allowed users to record their emotions and thoughts in a variety of ways and could be used over a longer period of time than other techniques. I was eager to gather information from a wide range of people as I felt that it was important for my product to be accessible to as many types of users as possible. Cultural probes seemed to give me a better chance of doing so as I could create a number of packs and dispatch them to people outside of my local area.
I began to assemble different articles that I would include in my Colour pack. These included:
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I was attempting to provide my users with a variety of different ways to record their thoughts. Not only could they do this with photos and handwriting, but the coloured pencils would allow them to express notions of colour even further (whether consciously or subconsciously). The most important thing that was included in my packs were sets of 5 coloured glasses. These were simply white cardboard frames with tinted acetate for lenses. The glasses were designed to not just to promote awareness of colour, but to try and encourage users to explore colour further and think about how they experienced it on a day to day basis. These were contained in a small carry case and the whole pack was conceived so that it could be carried as a whole or in separate parts. I wanted my users to not only use these Colour packs at home, but at work and on the move.
The purpose of the cameras in the pack were both to record what the user wished to take photos of and also to record use of the glasses. Users were encouraged to either take photos of themselves wearing the glasses or even take a photo through the coloured lenses. This would allow me to see what they took photos of as well as get an understanding of what it was like for them to view the world in different colours. I hoped that these photos, combined with the content of the notebooks would provide me with more inspiration and greater perception of how individuals perceive colour and stress day to day.
How do you feel each gel changes the atmosphere of this environment?
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I included in the packs a sheet explaining the nature of the project so far and the purpose of the packs themselves. I also gave my users details so that they could contact me at any point during the test if they had questions or issues relating to the packs. I felt this was important because my users for these packs would not be people I see on a regular basis.
To give you an idea of the spread of different backgrounds my users were from i have put together a small list below. I hoped that ensuring this diversity would provide me with not only a wide range of feedback, but an understanding of the different issues users can face.
Due to some delays in my work schedule, I only managed to produce 6 packs for use in this test. These still resulted in being effective and provided me with a variety of written and visual feedback from the users.
On the whole I had mainly positive feedback from my users. As expected, each undertook the challenge in a different manner, some being very rigorous with their documentation of their experiences, others more sparse. What was most interesting to note was the differences between individual experiences of colour and stress. I was expecting there to be a strong element of variance between the users, having purposely selected a diverse group of people. However I was still taken aback by the gulf between some of the results. One user went so far as to state that they do not genuinely feel stress in life and did not consider colour to be important in their life. Contrastingly another user enjoyed using the colour pack so much that they requested to retain the coloured glasses at the end of the test process.
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What was also fascinating to see were the different styles that he users had taken to convey their thoughts and emotions. Some were very detailed in what they wrote whereas others preferred to write little but make more of an impact in the way that they laid out their thoughts in both space and colour. To me this highlighted further the different ways that people think about colour. This reinforced my earlier feelings and I began to realise that rather it was much more important to create a product that was open to individual control and authorship than being a prescriptive experience.
Looking through the various photos that they took during the test process I was also interested to note the impact that colour had on a scene. Sometimes it was clear why a certain colour filter had been used by a person, other times it was more ambiguous. The most important thing that I interpreted form the photos was the negative impact that colour filters could have. Despite having a flash on the camera, some of the darker filters made it very hard to pick out what was going on in a scene. This point was reiterated by some of the users in their notes. I realised that I was going to be working with coloured lenses in the future I would have to take this point in to heavy consideration.
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Overall the users were happy to take part in the Colour pack test. However, there were some interesting negative points which came up both in their notes and while talking to them:
I now understand how specific you have to be when conducting testing of this nature. What can seem very straightforward as a designer is often quite complex for other individuals. In the end what I designed would not be officially labelled a cultural probe, but it was what inspired the Colour pack. I did not have enough activities or challenges for my users to truly call it a cultural probe, nor was it designed to the same level. I was more interested in promoting the capture of images and thoughts in relation to my two topics of colour and relaxation. This would prove to be a poor decision on my behalf and I feel that had I taken more care to designing a proper cultural probe I would have gained much more feedback and inspiration from my users. Also, knowing that some of my user group were very busy on a daily basis, I should have handed out more packs to lessen the impact of users being unable to fully complete certain tasks.
Most importantly from the feedback I gained was the lack of references to stress or relaxation. Occasionally a user would write about them, but more common were references simply to moods. I took the opportunity to talk to some of my users about this and they confirmed that stress was not something they found related to colour in their lives. What they did state on the other hand was that they enjoyed the ability to experience colour in ways they were unaccustomed to. This led me to start thinking about revising my project in relation to relaxation. Though it may be a by-product of some peoples experiences with colour, it seemed to be far too complex and individually orientated to be tackled in such a project. I surmised that perhaps there it too would end up being reduced to the same level as colour psychology had been: something to be catered for but not central to the experience of my project.
Another area I felt I could have improved on in my research was expanding the range of users I talked to. I feel it might have been valuable if I had tried to contact some experts in certain fields such as psychology and optometry. This could have shed light on certain subjects such as colour perception, as well as potential studies that may have been relevant to my project. I feel that because I took so long on finally confirming what I was going to explore in my project, I wasted a lot of valuable research time. However I still feel that the research I conducted was to a high level and still proved valuable throughout my design process.
The next logical step in my project was to take this information from the colour packs and my previous research and begin to devise a more complete idea of what this product would look like and what its functions would be.