Art History, Culture, and Color by Maria Matveeva (UX Burlington 2015)

In this presentation, we will take a deep look into the meaning of color. We’ll address it from three perspectives:

The meaning of colors changed throughout art history. We’ll review a few surprising examples that make for a good conversation starter at a bar or at the museum. Colors’ meaning is deeply rooted in culture. Colors we call “basic” don’t even have a name in some historical contexts. Any color can have a different meaning once you change its context. We’ll look into some culturally charged colors and how they could cause problems for UX design. Color use in branding and UX design for web applications. When to use color conventions like red for “error” and green for “success” – and when to go around these best practices to accommodate other considerations. We’ll look at Facebook, Dribble, Netflix and Spotify and analyze their use of color.

This talk will give you an appreciation of the many ways you can think about selecting a color, plus a few art historical anecdotes to share with colleagues.

About Maria Matveeva
Maria Matveeva is a UX Designer at DockYard.com, a design driven software consultancy in Boston.

After 5+ years managing design for a nonprofit organization, Maria took a year off to study in Montreal, and then moved into a specialized role as UX designer. (Before that, she just called it thinking). She helps organize the meetups and camp for UX East.