Color and Instructional Design

Introduction

The world around us is filled with color. Given that we experience the world in this way, it seems obvious that the instructional designer should make use of color. However, this may not be a foregone conclusion. After all, the major information sources for learning are books and journals that are primarily in black and white. Does this indicate that color has no place in learning materials? On the other hand, the surging use of computers and the Internet for communication and learning seems to indicate that color should play a major role in the user interface; there are few web pages that are entirely black and white.

Texts dedicated to instructional design discuss the use of color, but the amount of coverage tends to be minimal and the advice given is general in nature. For example, Heinich, Molenda, Russel & Smaldino (2002) dedicate 3 pages to the use of color, but with very generic advice, such as using “cool” colors instead of “warm” colors (pp. 126-128). Alessi & Trollip (2001) discuss color entirely on slightly more than one page, providing a very basic overview and a short list of guidelines, again with generic advice such as “be consistent in the use of color” or “use only a few colors for color coding” (pp. 76-77). In another text dedicated to instructional design, Ledford & Sleeman (2000) don’t even include a section dedicated to the use of color. The only mention of color in the whole book is in one sentence (p. 125).

This paper will cover the topic of color in more depth in order to provide more information and hopefully more specific useful advice for the instructional designer.

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