Picked black and white icons over color coded ones, got pushback from the team

I decided to skip color coding entirely for a dashboard I made for a logistics company in Tulsa. Everyone said I should use green for 'on time' and red for 'late' like every other app out there. I went with bold black icons plus text labels instead, figuring it's better to make sure nobody misses the info. Three weeks in, two guys on the team said they actually preferred it because they didn't have to second-guess what the colors meant. Still got a coworker who insists I'm overthinking it and that red and green are 'obvious.' Has anyone else tried stripping out color completely and found it works better than expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_aaron14d ago

Ha, you're basically telling people that red means stop and green means go is too complicated for them. That's a bold move for a logistics dashboard where missing a late shipment means someone's forklift is sitting idle. I tried the same thing with a warehouse map once. Told everyone we'd use shapes and text instead of the usual color chaos. Got the same pushback until the colorblind guy on the night shift said it was the first time he could actually read the screen without squinting. Your coworker calling red and green 'obvious' has clearly never met the 8% of dudes who literally can't tell those colors apart. Keep your black icons, let them eat their traffic light dashboard in peace.

blaker7514d ago

Yeah I heard somewhere that color blindness affects way more people than most devs realize. Your warehouse story proves it's not about dumbing things down, it's about making them actually work for everyone.