Chromostereopsis

Your constantly-updated definition of Chromostereopsis and collection of videos and articles

What is Chromostereopsis?

Chromostereopsis is a visual illusion that occurs when certain colors are placed alongside each other, making it unnecessarily difficult to focus on both colors. The illusion is due to the respective wavelengths stimulating different areas within the eye.

Chromostereopsis is most likely to occur when blue and red or green and red are placed side by side. The designer can avoid this by using different saturations and contrasts or by placing achromatic borders around each of the colors.

Visual perception is a constant factor that affects usability and design. Therefore, it is a good idea for the UX designer to be familiar with the limitations of the visual perception system.

Literature on Chromostereopsis

Here’s the entire UX literature on Chromostereopsis by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Chromostereopsis

Take a deep dive into Chromostereopsis with our course The Ultimate Guide to Visual Perception and Design .

Human vision is an amazing ability; we are capable of interpreting our surroundings so as to interact safely and accurately with little conscious effort. However, we are well attuned to nature and things that occur naturally in our environment, which has significant implications for design. Unless man-made products are attuned to, and support, human visual perception, the viewing experience suffers and there is significant potential that users will be unable to use your products quickly, safely, or without error. For this reason, it is essential that we investigate how we see the world and why we see things in the way we do in order to know what we can do to ensure our products provide the best viewing experience possible. This is why we have developed “The Ultimate Guide to Visual Perception and Design,” and why it is such an important topic for designers to master.

For those of us who are blessed with good eyesight, we seldom consider it. That’s why going off to investigate the whys and hows involved is a little like trying to get behind the wind for the sake of finding the exact spot where it comes from. Happily, getting to the bottom of the phenomena involved in visual perception is a lot less laborious, and perhaps infinitely more fascinating. During the course, we will first cover the basic anatomy of the human eye so as to understand how vision is formed. We will then look at lots of different designs, evaluating each one according to specific aspects of the human visual experience. We will also identify how we can improve designs to support human vision better and improve usability as a direct result. Using the knowledge it imparts earlier on, this course will then analyze the design of icons in screen-based interfaces.

All open-source articles on Chromostereopsis

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