> High contrast, color-coded buttons take less time to mentally digest. I agree with this strongly and recommend using high-contrast features and color whereve

> High contrast, color-coded buttons take less time to mentally digest. I agree with this strongly and recommend using high-contrast features and color wherever it can assist in rapid recognition of important UI elements. I remember being surprised by how much font-lock-mode reduced my bug/typo rate; I started fixing many errors immediately after typing them because the color was obviously wrong. However... it's important to remember that a lot more color blind people will use your UI than you might suspect (if you even remembered to account for color blindness at all, which is unfortunately common). Color can still be used, but remember to also include other no-color based differences and/or use a tool (or consultant) to verify everything is still high contrast and easily distinguishable. edit: > “and when this one becomes tolerable, they’ll change the software on me.” I had an echocardiogram a few months ago, and the technician had to restart after making a minor mistake setting up the first image. Apparently the test equipment was modular, and the plug-in features would show up on the touchscreen UI in the order the hardware was plugged in. The medical center had two of these devices, and the technician was used to the other machine. The one we were using had several buttons in opposite locations. Obviously this was only a minor problem at the time, but medical equipment is another situation where it's probably a very bad idea to make the UI layout unstable. Having physical buttons has the advantage of limiting how much the UI can be changed in a software update.