Wall Colour

Critical surfaces are the areas that would be considered the most important when trying to gather information about a space in terms of its dimensions and moving safely about the room. These would include things like doors, skirting, lighting, and obstacles within the room (e.g., furniture, desks, tables, etc.). Students who are visually impaired need to be able to easily identify these surfaces so that they can move around safely. The obvious answer to this problem would then be to maximize the colour contrast between such surfaces. Using contrasting colours such as black, yellow, and white could create stark contrasts between things like floors, walls, doors, handrails, and stairs. The problem with this is that you will create an environment that is unappealing to fully sighted users of the space, as well as a room that may be overstimulating to students who are sensitive to environmental stimuli (CPD 6, 2018). Because the majority of those who are visually impaired can still distinguish colour variations, it is possible to create inclusive spaces that meet the needs of visually impaired students, while still being aesthetically pleasing and not overstimulating to sighted students. It is recommended that adjoining surfaces have a minimum of 30 points of difference in their light reflectance value (LRV). This is enough contrast for the majority of those who are visually impaired to perceive the contrast, while not being distracting to those who are fully sighted. LRV is a 100-point scale that describes the percentage of light being reflected from the surface. 0 is black and 100 is white (see Figure 5).

Llinares et al. (2021) conducted a study to investigate the impact that warm and cold coloured classrooms can have on cognitive attention and memory function of students. Warm colours are colours such as red, orange and yellow, and cold colours are colours like green blue, and violet. The study involved 160 participants across 24 different virtual reality (VR) environments, 12 of which were warm colours, while the other 12 were cold colours. The effect of the different colours within the various VR environments on the participants’ attention and memory were measured though psychological and neurophysiological responses. These responses were tracked through psychological attention and memory tasks. The participants also completed a questionnaire about their sense of presence during the experiment, which refers to the illusion of “being there” during an environmental simulation. The results of this study demonstrated that the colder hue colours increased arousal and performance in both attention and memory tasks. This result can be explained “at the neurophysiological level by the achievement of a level of sympathetic system activation appropriate to the maintenance of higher alertness and cognitive performance” (Llinares et al., 2021, p. 10).

Yildirim et al. (2014) conducted research to assess the potential effects of different interior wall colours of classrooms on the perceptual performance of male students. A survey was used for a total of 909 students at a Vocational High School in Ankara, Turkey. The students at this school were solely male and ranged from grades 9-12. Three different types of colour were examined in this study: neutral, warm, and cool. The neutral colour was cream, the warm colour was pink, and the cool colour was blue. The results of the survey showed that the different interior colours of the classrooms had a statistically significant effect on the perceptual performance of the male students. The results showed that the blue walls were perceived the most positively. The blue walls were described as happy, roomy, peaceful, pleasant, calm, and comfortable. Despite this, the blue walls were also viewed as being less exciting and dynamic than the others. The findings of this study were consistent with previous studies, as though the blue colour elicited peaceful and calm perceptions from the students, the warm colours made the room seem smaller but more stimulating. This is an important factor to consider when thinking about students who are sensitive to environmental stimuli and may be overwhelmed by the warmer colours.

Pourbagher et al. (2021) conducted research via a survey of 275 university students. Their aim was to determine the impact of wall colour on student stress and concentration. The main wall colours that they examined were green (cold), blue (very cold), red (very warm), yellow (warm), and white (neutral). Wall colour was the independent variable while the amount of stress, concentration, and combination between the two was the dependent variable. According to the results, wall colour had the most significant effect on students’ stress and concentration in classrooms with flexible seating plans and furniture arrangements. Classrooms with a rigid layout and fixed seating showed the least impact from wall colour on the students. Pourbagher et al. (2021) concluded that on average, wall colour has about a nine percent effect on students’ stress and concentration across a variety of classrooms.