When you think about color, you need to understand who will use the product and why it will appeal to them. "Attractive" doesn't mean what colors they like. Rather, it means what features and values connect users to the product. Does your (typical) user want the product to feel precise? Smart? Durable? Sophisticated? Are there specific colors or color combinations, and what features do they have?
Once you understand your users, you can begin to design a successful product design strategy that appeals to them and fulfills their hopes. In addition to the functionality of the medical product, what goals do you want to achieve? Is your main goal to make the product easy to use? Make it more attractive? Make it feel calming or exciting or fun? A good strategy will bring together many elements that, when brought together, will achieve your goals.
It's done through process
A good process ensures integrity and consistency. To ensure that you always choose the right colors, your process should include checking and analyzing these things:
Competitive analysis: What are others doing? Are their colors bold or mild? Should your product be consistent with the competition, or should it be significantly different? Do users have specific color expectations?
The environment in which the product will be used: Does the dominant environment have a specific color? Is the environment visually busy or calm? Will the product be used primarily in a hospital/clinic environment, at home, or in a public ****ing setting? How do you want your product to be placed in the environment - should it stand out or should it blend in?
Cultural Factors: Did you know that a variety of colors are symbolized in different cultures? How strong are those symbolic connections?
Company Colors:Many companies try to use their company brand colors in their products. Unless the brand colors match the product. ,then using company colors as a color scheme for the product should be avoided.
Sterilization methods: If your product is reusable, you need to consider whether the sterilization method will affect the product color. ETOO and gas plasma sterilization have no significant effect on color. Radiation sterilization using gamma or electron beams can cause the color to shift to yellow.
Once you know what users want, your strategy will be to meet those user expectations and choose the right color.
First choose the color temperature. Most products will have one color covering most surfaces. Should the dominant color be warm, cool or neutral? Recall that the color wheel is cool on the green-cyan-blue side and warm on the yellow-red-magenta side. For the vast majority of medical products, you don't want to make users scream. In fact, most medical products currently and historically use green, blue, and the neutral color white/gray. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that blue and green are calming colors.
The rationale for using darker colors is if the product is reusable and will use gamma sterilization or electron beam radiation. These methods will shift the product to a yellow color (to varying degrees, depending on the material). Any yellow shift in the dark color will not be as noticeable. Dark colors are also more resistant to staining - a good reason to use dark casters.
White, light gray or subtle colors are used for functional areas because they make it easier to see if the product has been thoroughly cleaned. A good way to achieve a warm neutral in medical product design is to add a small amount of high intensity yellow to the gray:
After the color temperature
the decision of warm/cool/neutral is likely to be relatively easy. The next step before narrowing down your choice of color should be to focus on the brightness of the color in the product area,
With healthcare-related product development, a decision can be made about the level of saturation considering whether you want a bold effect or a muted effect. Highly saturated hues are bold and exuberant. Unsaturated hues are muted.
Product Volume
The size of the different color options available depends on the medical product design. Larger products require larger areas of neutral colors so as not to overwhelm the space they are used in. Smaller products, such as handheld tools and devices, use darker colors that are bolder and more saturated in greater overall form.
Color Fads and Trends
Fad colors definitely influence the color choices of medical products. Using trendy colors makes the product look up-to-date rather than out-of-date. The psychological effect of using "up-to-date" should not be underestimated. Beware of using unusual colors, especially on products with relatively long life cycles.
In addition, we see many medical products used in the home environment. Color is very important in attracting consumers. Colors should be chosen to suit the lifestyle of the household. Red, green, yellow, orange and blue are the most recognizable colors. The number of colors used for coding should be as small as possible (e.g. one color in addition to the base color indicates a user touch point). Many studies have found that we can only retain three to four pieces of information in our short-term memory at a time, suggesting that no more than four colors should be used for color coding.
Color design is a rich and complex subject. Thoughtful and appropriate color decisions must be made when designing medical products and devices.