Color POV Tool

education_cultivation

Imagine a world where every person you meet is exactly like you. Looks like you. Acts like you. Speaks like you. Thinks like you... what would the conversations be like?

The scenario above could be an excerpt from a script for an upcoming science-fiction movie. But it also resembles the modern adoption process by which many states dictate the textbooks that schools and districts use. There is little doubt that textbooks can provide a meaningful learning tool for students. But it has become obvious to many that textbooks today "are sanitized to avoid offending anyone who might complain at textbook adoption hearings in big states, they are poorly written, they are burdened with irrelevant and unedifying content, and they reach for the lowest common denominator. As a result of all this, they undermine learning instead of building and encouraging it" (Finn & Ravitch 2004).

Designers too have succumbed to the homogenizing effects of standardized thinking about the design of learning environments. This is especially true when the issue is color. While it is accepted that there are likely perceptual responses to colors that can affect human experience, these responses are grounded in "culturally learned associations and by the physiological and psychological makeup of people" (Tofle, Schwarz et al. 2003). The idea that there is a direct, uniformly meaningful connection between environmental colors and emotional states is simply not supported in the literature (Tofle, Schwarz et al. 2003 & Fielding 2006). Yet design decisions are often based on such logic.

The idea that people may learn color responses by cultural association is not new and is related to other theories about how we learn and comprehend. Researchers in Situated Cognition, for example, suggest that cognition is tied directly to social experiences and interactions in the physical world (Gee 2001). Cognition is not innate but develops over time through action. Color cognition is no different. It is learned through situated exposure and interaction with others.

And while individuals who share a common cultural identity may also share a common experience with color, it is important not to oversimplify this relationship since people clearly operate within and between multiple identity groups (Gee 2001). Color perception and understanding is, accordingly, complex and multivariate.

Can designers use color strategically in the design of educational environments with any hope of affecting a positive outcome if specific colors do not illicit the emotional responses that we might wish to predict? Of course the answer is yes but it requires a more informed understanding of the cultural makeup and relationships of the students, the contextual setting, and the removal of pre-conceptions about colors and emotional responses.

Just as our conversations are made richer by the full spectrum of our differences, the full spectrum of color, when used thoughtfully in the environment, can yield a richer experience for learners of all ages (Fielding 2006).

Finn, C. and Ravitch, D. "The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption." Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Washington D.C., September 2004

Tofle, R.B., B. Schwarz, S-Y Yoon, and A. Max-Royale. "Color in Healthcare Environments." The Coalition for Health Environments Research (CHER), 2003

Gee, J.P. "Reading as Situated Language" A Sociocognitive Perspective." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44:8 (May 2001), 714-725