Author: Dale Sahlberg - 7 -
GOLD COLOR MENU
Color has been found by numerous studies to be vital to workplace efficiency. The environment around us affects our productivity. Hospitals use color effectively for their various departments. Warm colors for pediatrics, neutral colors for the ICU rooms, cool colors for the waiting rooms. People respond differently to colors and have preferences as to the shade they are most comfortable viewing.
Neutral colors convey a sense of balance. Neutral colors contain equal parts of the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Black, white and gray are considered "neutral". Business offices often have neutral colors.
Some people prefer warm colors. Hotels employ warm colors in the lobby as do hospital neonatal wards. Warm colors seem to move toward the viewer and appear closer. Below are seven warm colors in a combination of pure tints, tones, and shades.
Other people respond better to cool colors. Cool colors suggest calmness and seem to recede from a viewer as background colors - blue and green are the colors of water and trees. Blue causes the brain to send off 11 response chemicals and is associated with tranquility. Here are seven cool colors in a combination of pure tints, tones, and shades.
3270 terminals used to have red and green dominant, which people have found hard to read at times. What if a hospital’s GOLD application now has screens with blue and yellow dominant? Will all users be able to easily read that screen? A few people will have a hard time seeing that pale yellow for a required field on a blue panel background. If the highlighted field were red, then the required field could be more easily recognized. Is a blue/yellow color scheme fair to everyone using the computer for data entry?
One color aspect often overlooked is related to genetics and receptors in a person’s eye: sensitivity. People see colors and hues in varying strengths due to their red, green and blue receptors in the eye. Red / green lack of sensitivity is the most common form of color blindness while yellow / blue lack of sensitivity is the second common form. Around 8% of males and 1% of females have color blindness.
Try the color test below – what numbers do you see?
Color can be effectively used for screen displays on a computer:
A) Complementary - two colors opposite one another on the color wheel (blue and orange, yellow and purple, red and green). Complementary colors create a clear distinction in choices. When a CANCEL button is complementary to an ENTER button, it is easy to see the distinctions.
B) Spatial Effects - to localize panels and tabs, employ color for spatial effects. Hues that are lighter at maximum saturation (yellows, oranges) appear larger than those that are darker (blues and purples). The navigator menu is darker and the main application well is lighter in hue.
C) Balance and proportion - use high-intensity colors (a pure hue with no other colors mixed in) to draw attention and give an appearance of carrying more weight than low-intensity areas. Required fields have a high intensity and optional fields have a low intensity.
GOLD offers a palette of colors for buttons, titles, panels, tabs, input fields, output fields and scroll bars that exceed the limited color options found in 3270 / Rumba terminals.
GOLD provides a way to tailor the computer screen to display colors by using variable fields.
GOLD examples:
%OABKG01 Navigator well background color
%OABKG02 Header and footer, active tabs
%OABKG03 Application well background color and more fields …
Instead of the blue, red, green and black of 3270 terminals, you can accessorize more with GOLD.
However, current color options for GOLD are reserved for Information Systems staff to customize; basically, everyone gets a shade of ocean blue when using model screens. Is there a way to design a system that lets people pick the best colors for their eyes? YES – by using the GOLD COLOR MENU.
With the COLOR MENU, users can select colors they are most comfortable with. The disadvantage to changing colors on the 3270 / Rumba terminals is the change affects others using that terminal. However, GOLD can be “color coordinated” by each user just for their work. Best of all, the color change is for their current session and does not affect others who also use the same computer. When a person signs off, the color scheme is returned to the model default.
DOCUMENTATION
1) Add a new field called “UCOLOR” to your data dictionary. This U field will be used to track when a user has chosen custom color settings.
2) Insert the “UCOLOR”=’N’ in the DVA section of a signon tcl so it becomes a permanent field in the AUDA. Example: $T=GENERAL add this “UCOLOR”=’N’ to the bottom of the DVA section. Use this field in any signon tcls you want to add the GOLD color menu to.
3) Copy the metafile $G = COLOR into the GOLD region of your hospital. This form / screen is the color menu and has been already defined. Simply access the screen to customize the color display fields of:
%OABKG01 Navigator well background color
%OABKG02 Header and footer, active tabs
%OABKG03 Application well background color and more fields …
4) Add a button to the main menu so a person can branch out to the GOLD COLOR MENU. Example of a main menu is below …
5) Create a Host Action Controller with a command to go out to the color menu then return to the pathway. Attach the controller to the Insert the main menu screen name as appropriate to your application. For example, this controller branches to the color menu of $G=COLOR and returns to the former main menu of $G=GPNAME01. The “%CSRET” ignores any stack commands while the branching is occurring.
6) Change the GOLD default color tcl of $T = OA@@@@@@ so the DVA section is now in the conditional stack. Move all the DVA logic out of the former DVA section into the ELSE clause.
The logic in the first part of the conditional stack informs the computer that a person has chosen custom colors (bypass model default colors) … else use model default colors. Enter all the default color scheme DVA fields into the ELSE clause.
WHERE ALL OF "UCOLOR" IS VALUED
AND "UCOLOR" EQ 'Y'
THEN "%OAIMGNM"='Default.gif'
ELSE "%OAGPREC"='1' and all the rest of the model default color scheme
Note: model or any custom colors work only for GOLD screens not remapped 3270 screens.
HOW IT ALL WORKS
A) When a person first signs on, the "UCOLOR" will be N (NO) so the model ocean blue default color scheme will be enacted.
B) At the main menu an option to change the colors can be selected. When a user selects a color, the "UCOLOR" will be set to Y (YES). The color scheme will stay in effect each time the tcl of $T = OA@@@@@@ is accessed due to the flag set in “UCOLOR” of Y (YES).
C) There are six background options and one foreground option to select. Take care to ensure that the text can be viewed on all backgrounds and that the chosen colors still allow all objects to display.
D) After choosing a background or text option, select a color.
E) When a person signs off, the temporary color scheme is deleted.
F) If the person desires to go back to default colors while still signed on, then select this button and return to the main menu to restore the model color scheme.
Now users can select a color scheme that is the best for their eyes.