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100 Things You Should Know About People: #9 — Blue and Red Together is Hard On Your Eyes (Chromostereopsis)

by

Susan Weinschenk

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Alternating blue and red bars
Alternating blue and red bars
Red text on a blue background
Red text on a blue background

What is it about red and blue? — When lines (or letters) of different colors are projected or printed, the depths of the lines may appear to be different; lines of one color may “jump out” while lines of another color are recessed. This effect is called Chromostereopsis. This effect is strongest with red and blue, but it can also happen with other colors (for example, red and green).

So what? — In addition to causing a depth effect, chromostereopsis can also be annoying and hard on the eyes. It is fatiguing. Although there are different theories as to why your eyes react to these color combinations in the way that they do, the important thing to remember is that they do.

What should you do about it? — If you are a visual or web designer make sure that you are not using red and blue together in this way. I still find web sites that have this color combination. Here are a few!

Example of a website with red and blue
Example of a website with red and blue
Example of a website with red and blue
Example of a website with red and blue
Example of a website with red and blue
Example of a website with red and blue

What examples have you found?

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Comments

14 responses to “100 Things You Should Know About People: #9 — Blue and Red Together is Hard On Your Eyes (Chromostereopsis)”

  1. links for 2009-11-12 « riverrun meaghn beta

    […] What Makes Them Click » Blog Archive » 100 Things You Should Know About People: #9 — Chromostere… When people see different colors close to each other there is the possibility of an effect called chromostereopsis. The depths of the lines appear to be different — one color jumps out and the other color recedes. This is most prominent with the colors red and blue, although it can happen with other colors as well: (tags: color websites screen) Leave a Comment […]

    Reply
  2. Joe Pulaski Avatar
    Joe Pulaski

    Thanks for making a point of how difficult red and blue is to see. I have red-green color blindness, and it seems worse for me (maybe not). I still see so much of this that I thought it just because of my color blindness.

    Reply
  3. Hezi Avatar
    Hezi

    Very interesting.what R the best combinations?

    Reply
  4. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    Many flags have red and blue side by side. I wonder.

    Reply
    1. XiiXii Avatar
      XiiXii

      red on blue on information display… Flag eh?.. i wonder… i wonder…

      Reply
  5. P-Mac Daddio Avatar
    P-Mac Daddio

    Check out http://www.LiveTechnology.com to help further prove your point.
    Yes, massive chromostereopsis but this website is also just heinous.

    Reply
    1. Cameron Aero Avatar
      Cameron Aero

      I agree. It fealt like a “used car salesman” website lol!

      Reply
  6. Brickie Avatar
    Brickie

    Argh, they hurt my eyes.

    Actually, a good rule of thumb is to go with heraldic rules. Under medieval heraldry there were two “metals” – white (silver) and yellow (gold) and five “colours” – green, red, blue, black and purple. The rule was that you never put a colour next to a colour, or a metal next to a metal. The principals are still largely adhered to in flag design to this day, with some exceptions.

    Reply
  7. Brickie Avatar
    Brickie

    *cough* principles, not principals. *cough*

    Reply
  8. Susan Weinschenk Avatar
    Susan Weinschenk

    Brickie — interesting history about the medieval heraldry. I hadn’t heard that before.

    Reply
  9. Emi Avatar
    Emi

    What are the best combination colors? Any one ans this? if so why?

    Reply
  10. Paulo Priess Avatar
    Paulo Priess

    The main thing if you HAVE to use Red an Blue, is to use NEUTRAL “colors” as separators or “white space”.

    White works great, so if you have literally WHITE space, the red/blue combination won’t be so annoying as if they were placed together.

    The company I work for has red and blue as corporate colors and I hate it. But the use of lots of white helps reduce the problem.

    Personally I would not use colors so bright and vivid together.

    Reply
  11. Use Photos to Generate Beautiful Colour Palettes | Larch Learning Solutions

    […] “I can’t believe they did that!” I muttered to myself. Red-on-blue is hard on the eyes and should be avoided in any kind of web-design and that goes for elearning courses […]

    Reply
  12. ASIYA Avatar
    ASIYA

    If you are a visual or web designer make sure that you are not using red and blue together in this way.

    Reply

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