* Contrast
Elements that aren’t the same should be very different so they stand out, making them “slightly different” confuses the user into seeing a relation that doesn’t exist. Strong contrast between page elements allows the user’s eye to flow from one to another down the page instead of creating a sea of similarity that’s boring and not communicative.
* Repetition
Repeat styles down the page for a cohesive feel — if you style related elements the same way in one area, continue that trend for other areas for consistency.
* Alignment
Everything on the page needs to be visually connected to something else, nothing should be out of place or distinct from all other design elements.
* Proximity
Proximity creates related meaning: elements that are related should be grouped together, whereas separate design elements should have enough space in between to communicate they are different.
...and ask girls for feedback. they're better with color for some reason.
Women have a greater chance of being tetrachromats than men do. Basically a tetrachromat can see a fourth range of colors giving them the ability to distinguish 100 million colors compared to the 1 million colors normal people see.
Would this matter on electronic media? Typical color LCD/CRT screens have only red, green, and blue pixels - a tetrochromat wouldn't get any signal on the fourth channel. Computer displays increase the number of colors by increasing the number of bits per channel, but with 24-bit color (8 bits per channel), you're already showing 256 different intensities of light, while the human eye can only distinguish 100. You'd either need special displays or an eye that can pick up more gradations of color per channel to increase the color bandwidth.
I think this effect may be because of another phenomenon I heard about in my psych class: females tend to have larger vocabularies for color than men do. Whether that means they can see more colors or say more colors remains to be determined (and my philosophy class said it can't be determined ;-)), but the net result is that you get better color feedback from a woman.
The fact is that men like both women/men targeted designs, while women don't like men targeted designs. (I can't find the source, but it's in the sources of an A List apart article[1])
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learn C.R.A.P.
...and ask girls for feedback. they're better with color for some reason.Women have a greater chance of being tetrachromats than men do. Basically a tetrachromat can see a fourth range of colors giving them the ability to distinguish 100 million colors compared to the 1 million colors normal people see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy
Would this matter on electronic media? Typical color LCD/CRT screens have only red, green, and blue pixels - a tetrochromat wouldn't get any signal on the fourth channel. Computer displays increase the number of colors by increasing the number of bits per channel, but with 24-bit color (8 bits per channel), you're already showing 256 different intensities of light, while the human eye can only distinguish 100. You'd either need special displays or an eye that can pick up more gradations of color per channel to increase the color bandwidth.
I think this effect may be because of another phenomenon I heard about in my psych class: females tend to have larger vocabularies for color than men do. Whether that means they can see more colors or say more colors remains to be determined (and my philosophy class said it can't be determined ;-)), but the net result is that you get better color feedback from a woman.
The fact is that men like both women/men targeted designs, while women don't like men targeted designs. (I can't find the source, but it's in the sources of an A List apart article[1])
[1] Related: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/wiwa/
Looks like it's not just me... http://www.buzzle.com/articles/color-blindness-facts.html
More men are color-blind