Designing graphical elements for cognitively demanding activities: An account on fine-tuning for colors

Abstract

Interactive systems evolve: during their lifetime, new functions are added, and hardware or software parts are changed, which can impact graphical rendering. Tools and methods to design, justify, and validate user interfaces at the level of graphical rendering are still lacking. This not only hinders the design process, but can also lead to misinterpretation from users. This article is an account of our work as designers of colors for graphical elements. Though a number of tools support such design activities, we found that they were not suited for designing the subtle but important details of an interface used in cognitively demanding activities. We report the problems we encountered and solved during three design tasks. We then infer implications for designing tools and methods suitable to such graphical design activities. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.