this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
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the squares are there for comedic effect. the shapes are not actually indistinguishable. but at a glance, color is a much faster tool we use to identify these icons. so the problem here is that it takes longer for us to decipher a Google app icon, and the solution would be to differentiate the colors.
also this would help colorblind people as well, because removing unnecessarily complicated colors would make the shapes easier to identify as well.
Yes I understand the meme and I'm not trying to get into an argument. I'm just trying to educate as to why relying on color as the primary differentiator is not a solution to the problem as proposed.
Think about what you're saying here, and consider how ridiculous it would sound if you said that to someone who was completely blind.
Sure, to a "color normal" person, something's color is a great differentiator, but even when using a colorblind friendly pallette it's just far easier for us to distinguish different shapes than colors. We've spent our whole lives adapting to a lack of color information so asking us to be able to work purely on color alone is like asking a blind person to see.
Again, and this part is really important and oft overlooked - this applies even when a designer has gone out of their way to choose a colorblind friendly pallette. It's just not that easy for us. I honestly couldn't even tell you what Google's corporate pallette is without looking and I'm sure that information is second nature to normies.
this image has two groups:
at first glance did you separate it into red v blue or circles vs squares?
you're absolutely making things up. we've evolved to differentiate shades as well, which supercedes colors. even for colorblind people this kind of image should be differentiated by color or shade first.
not to mention not all people have perfect vision, in fact people with blurry vision probably outnumber colorblind people, and that would make the shapes not extremely reliable, especially when most icons would be more or less squares and circles with small details changed.