Colour and the psychology of colour Part 2

Colour and the Psychology of Colour Part 2

The other day we were discussing publishing something as ‘Part 1’ or ‘First Edition’ and how often Part 2 never seems to materialise, newsletters being the most common example! Well guess what, here we are with Part 2 of my post on colour, dementia and how they relate.

“Where’s your evidence?”

In the early days I was right out on a limb and presenting my designs to Hospitals and Care Homes around the country (and occasionally abroad) and I was often challenged with this question. It was  a fair question and I became fairly adept at dealing with it. The problem was always that I had to say I didn’t have any evidence to support the effectiveness of the signs. Instead I would refer to research about colour and text etc in relation to people with dementia and explain how the products had been designed to accommodate the findings. It seemed to work in most situations, and it was good fun too. I’ve always enjoyed being challenged and invariably came away from a meeting feeling like something good had happened. It was an exciting time, and as it went on I began to get more and more positive feedback from people who were using the products. The more people who reported positive results, the more confident I was that we were doing the right thing. I often got to meet residents and they were sometimes invited to comment on the products directly. This was obviously a good thing to do for so many reasons and I just loved it when they came back with positive comments. One in particular will stick in my mind forever, as much for what was said as the way it was delivered.

I’d been invited to take my signs to a Care Home in Sheffield. The manager wanted them but they were an expensive product and they would need to do some fund raising to pay for them so she wanted to know they were going to be effective – remember this is Yorkshire and every Pound’s a prisoner.

We sat down with a selection of signs and passed them round a small group comprising staff and residents. One chap in particular examined the signs in great detail and when asked for his thoughts, in a proper Yorkshire accent he efficiently declared “Ya don’t ‘ave to think, they just tell ya”. Job done! Needless to say they bought the signs. I’ll never forget that.

Scotland seemed to be ahead of the game at the time and they had the three dynamic hubs of forward thinking in dementia: Stirling University’s DSDC, Alzheimers Scotland and The Scottish Dementia Working Group. The Scottish Dementia Working Group was an incredible concept and so forward thinking at the time. It was an organisation comprised largely of people who were, or were caring for someone, living with dementia. I was invited to attend one of their meetings and present my designs. This felt like putting my head in the lion’s mouth and I can honestly say that if they didn’t validate the designs I would have stopped right there and revised it. No one can tell you better whether something works or not than the people for whom it was designed for and I had the utmost respect for that of course. Thankfully they really appreciated the designs and were very encouraging.

If you’re still reading you’re probably wondering what the hell any of this has to do with colour. Directly, it doesn’t have anything to do with colour as such. But bearing in mind that nothing like this existed at the time, and the designs were proving very effective, these experiences were telling me how important it was that people with living with dementia in care homes had these products made available to them. So let’s remember, a significant number of operators would not employ these products because of the primary colours which made them look out of place. Although we were producing one to two thousand units per month, I was constantly niggled by the knowledge that some operators were rejecting them out of hand because they found the colours offensive in some way. My problem was that I didn’t know how else to design the signs to get over the problem.

It was several years later when I learnt of Light Reflectance Value. Here was the one thing that made a whole heap of a difference. It was the key that unlocked the puzzle. The game changer.

The chains are off: goodbye primary colours!

From the users’ point of view, bracketing colours based on their Light Reflectance Value (LRV) enabled a significantly discernible contrast to be achieved without the restriction of working with primary colours. It’s universally acknowledged that a minimum differential of 30% will ensure an appropriate degree of contrast for users. This also carries over to those people who may be unable to discern colour any more.    

My initial excitement about discovering LRV’s was that we could offer a much wider colour palette for our signs and get away from the objections to primary colours, which in turn should mean the signs may become available to more people. It then occurred to me we could apply the same idea to all our products. Two further cups of tea later it had dawned on me that here we had a principle which should be applied to a Care Home’s interior as a whole.

It was very simple in the way that everything is once you know how. Understanding LRV’s is the key to making Care Home interiors much more attractive in a structured way that communicates.

Using LRV’s to distinguish between colours introduces a new dynamic for users with impaired vision and cognition. The approach can be incorporated in everything from décor to props and products used within the environment.

The broad palette and flexibility this provides, allows a design to not only make the environment attractive and navigable, crucially it also allows for the psychology of colour to be brought in to play.

I’m learning all the time about the potential impact of colour on well-being and how incredibly powerful this can be. I’m not an academic. I’m an engineer and for my working life I’ve always been ‘making stuff’. So how come I’ve come to this conclusion so confidently that I’ve thrown in everything I’ve worked on for the last 25 years to set up a one-man business to try and change the care industry? I know, I must be nuts! And it’s a tough gig, it really is because it’s hard to grab people’s attention, and when I do I think the potential for good just seems so fantastic that it can’t be true. But we've already made these things happen and seen the real potential an environmental re-think can provide.

What really excites and me when it comes to the use of colour in dementia care is that the LRV rule has allowed our useable colour palette to explode. In terms of imagination, the restrictions have been lifted and all colours are available to us providing we play by the rules.

Where's the joy? A typically dull Care Home corridor.

Now the psychology of colour really comes in to play. 

Of course there are things to be wary of but in the use of colour alone, there is so much potential for good! Consider the way our brains interpret colour. Colour doesn’t exist as a thing, it exists entirely in the way our brains process and interpret the information. Colour is so fundamental in our brain function that it should be no surprise it directly affects our emotions. It’s just shame we’re only just coming round acknowledging this, and generally I don’t think most of us are really comfortable with the idea. But colour is so fundamental to life it has a direct realtionship with emotion, in just the same way as music and memories do.

In the care home environment we need to rethink our designs. They needn't cost any more to create, they just need to be thought out differently. Using colour intelligently throughout the home can transform how it feels to be in that place. It can change the mood, health, behaviour and interaction of everyone who exists in that space for any period of time. It can literally make people happier, healthier and live longer and this massively impacts the health of the home as a business too.

Colour and colour psychology are massive subjects in their own right, yet they’re only one of the critical elements to consider in effective, dementia-specific design.  If you’d like to know more about the importance of colour in our lives and how it affects us I highly recommend you first watch the video in this post and then follow this link to this post by Karen Haller. We need to think a lot more about how and where we use colour in care homes because it has the power to do so much good that we’re currently over-looking.