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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Knowledge management - Using color as a semantic layer over content

On the use of color (or colour as we say in the old country) to capture semantics in textual content : Knowledge management - Using color to capture meaning

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try working with a collaborator who is blind or partially sighted or colour blind. Makes it harder Sean.

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't that be "olde country"? ;)

Sean McGrath said...

Anonymous,
Yes, you are right. Just as color coded cables cause problems. Unlike cables though, at least here we are talking about software so we have options.

I would love a word processor with a style system integrated with the audio system so that the semantic layer could be communicated through sound. I don't think such a thing exists though.

Hearing is a very powerful sense and the human ear is incredibly sensitive to pitch changes. It is underutilized.

Sean

Sean McGrath said...

Dean,
Verily.
Sean

APC said...

Developers have known this for years. Most editors and IDEs aimed at programmers support colour coding for keywords, variables, etc.

Because it is configurable you can choose the colour combinations which work for you; most people who are colour blind cannot distinguish between red and green but can tell the difference between blue and red or yellow and green.

Cheers, APC

Anonymous said...

Peter Coad came to the same conclusion back in 1999 in "Java Modeling in Color (sic) With UML":

http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=013011510X

Cheers, Tony.