Controlling the complexity of grouped items in colour interfaces

Authors:
Giovanni S. Moretti;Paul J. Lyons
Affiliations:
Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand;Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Venue:
CHINZ '05 Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI New Zealand chapter's international conference on Computer-human interaction: making CHI natural
Year:
2005

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Abstract

In this paper we describe a method of managing the complexity that arises when automatically colouring a realistic GUI interface. This complexity primarily comes from two sources, from the number of items to be coloured - which in interfaces of realistic complexity grows very quickly - and from the interactions between both the items' colours themselves and their background colour. Attempting to satisfy the relationships between the colours of items in an interface, their backgrounds, whether items may be coloured identically or must be distinct, and all the while creating a colour scheme that is harmonious requires multiple constraints be satisfied simultaneously. The addition of visually related groups of screen elements complicates this optimisation. The use of spring-based algorithms will allow groups to have their own local colour schemes (sub-schemes) while still satisfying the need for overall colour harmony.