Why is contrast so important?
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I work from home and have happily done so for the past three years. My home office, like the rest of the house, is a bright and enjoyable place to spend time. The furnishings and fittings are warm and practical colours. My desktop is dark grey, as is the kitchen benchtop, and the sofa is a lovely deep wine colour.
During the course of a typical day, I keep my phone on my desk, within easy reach. I try to remember to take it with me when I make a cup of tea in the kitchen and drink it on the sofa before returning to my office.
Here’s the problem; my phone is black. I put it down on the desk, the kitchen benchtop or the arm of the sofa, and it melts into the background. The next time I need to use it, I have a fleeting moment of ‘where’s my phone?’ panic. I know it’s somewhere in the house, but that is little comfort during the frantic search that ensues when it’s sitting on one of those surfaces.
Often, there are key elements of the built environment that are camouflaged, just like my phone on the arm of the sofa.
Sometimes these elements are intentionally disguised, like a glazed door that blends with the sidelights beside it. Footpaths that merge seamlessly with the adjacent roadway. Tactile ground surface indicators (those bumps along the edge of a pedestrian crossing point) that are deliberately monotone to make them less noticeable against the paving.
When coming from the hands of a talented designer, these elements are, of course, part of a larger creation. And taken as a whole, the aesthetic effect can be worthy of accolades.
But because these are designs for the built environment, people will be using them. Having little or no contrast between certain elements of the design makes that harder than it should be for all of us.
Of course, designers do not set out to make their creations difficult to use; no one deliberately tries to make the built environment harder to navigate. A white door with an aluminium frame in a white wall might appear to provide colour contrast. But a shaft of strong sunlight can render that door as difficult to spot as my phone on the arm of the sofa – and that’s for those of us with good (or in my case, good enough) vision. For people with reduced vision or cognitive impairments, finding that door may be difficult or impossible, regardless of the conditions.
My partner’s phone is white. It’s easy to notice if it falls out of his pocket onto the sofa when he stands up. You can spot it in seconds on the kitchen benchtop, in a gym bag, or on the back seat of the car. I’ve decided that my next phone will be white. Or maybe pink. Any colour that contrasts nicely with dark surfaces will do, and will make my day-to-day life a little easier.
Highlighting essential elements with a strong colour contrast will do the same for the built environment. While it’s nice that contrast makes things easier to use for most of us, for a lot of people, it means so much more than that. It is the difference between operating independently or not. So, let’s make sure those important elements really stand out.
