An interesting find today with a touch of Design meets Science from NASA. With wide ranging topics and immense detail, interesting to take a look at design through a scientific explanation from NASA Color Usage Research Lab.

Take a look, full of quite amazing technical description and details. Here is the site map along with a couple of site quotes…all quite dry, but kind of interesting.

Color Usage Site Home Page

Ordered Topics:

Color Design Process
Designing a Color Graphics Page (Checklist)

Color Design for Aerospace Applications
Design of Cockpit Graphics (Example)
Design of Air Traffic Management Graphics (Example)
Colors in Aviation Charts and Maps

Browse In Any Order:

Color Graphics Topics
    Labeling with Color
Grouping with Color
Color and Popout
    Creating Urgency Hierarchies
Creating Perceptual Layers
Designing with Luminance Contrast
Luminance Contrast in Color Graphics
Choosing Background Colors
Last Resorts: Outlining/Infills

Color Guidelines, Standards, and Requirements
Introduction to Guidelines and Standards
Hierarchy of Color Usage Guidelines
Guidelines for Color Discrimination and Identification
Luminance Contrast Color Guidelines
Other Color Design Guidelines
    Color Guidelines Bibliography

Applied Color Science
Luminance Contrast
Luminance and Chromaticity
Color Discrimination and Identification
Legibility
Designing with Blue
Individual Differences in Color Vision
Masking by Patterns
Blinking, Flashing and Temporal Response
Simultaneous and Successive Contrast
Display Hardware and Software
Reflected Light

Other:

Utilities
References
Bibliography
Links and External Resources
Site Map

Color Tool
Color Tool Example: Color Space Visualization
Color Tool Example: Color Search
Color Tool Example: Display Prototyping

Discussion of last graphic alternatives for giving symbols sufficient luminance contrast, including outlining and infills.

See: Last Resorts: Outlining / Infills

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See: Using This Site