Skip to content
SALIHUYAHAYA

Sense-making note

Never Let Colour Carry Meaning Alone

How redundant cues can make visual information accessible when colour perception is limited. The core idea is that adding text, symbols, shapes, patterns, or other cues preserves the meaning ...

  1. Home
  2. Learning in public
  3. Sense-making notes
  4. Taking a Walk In Quinn's Mind
  5. Never Let Colour Carry Meaning Alone

Clark Quinnmentions using other clues rather than colour alone so that important coding can still be perceived by people who are colour blind.

In other words:

Giving our learners another way to recognize the same meaning.

And So Instead of using only colours like green to communicate a correct response or red to communicate and in correct response like shown in the gif

🟢 Green = Correct
🔴 Red = Incorrect



we should make use of the color and a redundant cue like a text, symbol, sound or even a combination of two or more like shown in the gif below to help fill in the sensory gap for color blind learners.

🟢 ✓ Green = Correct
🔴 ✕ Red = Incorrect


And so the color will still be there, but it is no longer carrying the meaning by all by itself.

An addition of a Shape, Icon, Text, Pattern, Position, or Sound perhaps other perceptible cues can really go a long way in making the learning experience accessible for all types of learners regardless of senses disability type.

And So rather than color alone equating to a meaning
Color Alone → Meaning

Colour and one or more redundant cue are used together to communicate a meaning


Color + Redundant Cue → Meaning

Animated side-by-side comparison titled "Bad Practice vs Best Practice." Two identical drag-and-match quizzes sort the terms Non-reliance and Additional cue into "With Limitations," and Clarity, Detectable and Control into "Without Limitations." When Check is clicked, the bad-practice quiz only turns green, showing the result by colour alone. The best-practice quiz shows a large green tick, the word "Correct" and a Next button, so the result is clear without relying on colour.


Day 40 of Instructional Design

#InstructionalDesign#InstructionalDesigner#LearningAndDevelopment#Learni#SenseMakingNotes#MentalModels#TAWIQM#QuinnSeeds

In case you missed the Quinn Seed articles 👇

Quinn Seed #1- CLICK ME

Quinn Seed #2- CLICK ME

Where this comes from

  1. Check out "Learning Science" by Clark Quinn — If you design learning, teach, or train people, you need to understand what is actually happening when someone learns. Learning happens at the neural level, but we design for it at the cognitive level. There’s a lot more in Clark Quinn’s book that I can’t share because of **intellectual property**. Get the book and experience the learning yourself. 📚You Would Love It!
  2. Check out "40 L&D Stakeholder Challenges: Of L&D Leaders, Practitioners, Clients, and Learners" by Guy W. Wallace — This book shares the answers I got from my EPPI-PACT Guidance Bot. The free EPPI-PACT Guidance Bot is a digital, interactive knowledge-transfer resource designed to help Learning and Development (L&D) practitioners, performance consultants, and business leaders master and apply Guy W. Wallace’s Performance Improvement and Performance Based L&D methodologies.
  3. To Learn More Join the "Learning Development Accelerator" — Click the link to join the Amazing Learning Development Accelerator Group Where practice meets evidence