Issue 6, Spring 1993

William A. McEachern, Editor

In Living Color?

As you know, during the last few years the use of color in undergraduate textbooks has exploded. These "color wars" began at the principles level and quickly moved up to include intermediate textbooks. Do more colorful graphs and figures facilitate student learning? I have seen no discussion about the pedagogy of color. Even the most colorful textbooks usually have little to say about their use of color.

For example, one popular money and banking textbook uses color extensively. In the preface the author details 14 "pedagogical aids" of the book but says not a word about his use of color. What's more, the verbal explanations of figures and graphs make no reference to color. The books seems to have been written with no knowledge of what colors would be used or, indeed, whether multiple colors would be used. A more efficient use of color calls for a closer link between the verbal description and the color employed.

Another intermediate book, this one in macroeconomics, shades the background of each figure with colors that, in the same graph, range from bluish-green to pink. This shading makes the graphs look busy and adds no pedagogical value. I would describe this as the promiscuous use of color. This particular textbook's only explicit use of color in a consistent way is to shade boxes of words in the graphs. How ironic--the color is used not to identify systematically certain kinds of curves or certain areas of the graph, but to shade boxes that contain words, words that seem to clutter up the graph.

The reason color seems to be an afterthought in most textbooks is because it probably is. The division of labor typically sorts the task of book publishing roughly into the writing stage and the production stage. The selection of colors is often made in the production stage--akin to the choice of typeface, paper stock, and cover design. Authors should know at the writing stage what colors they have on their palette; they can then use color thoughtfully and effectively to enhance their story.

Color can be most effective in complicated figures. For example, in comparative static's, color can be used consistently to identify before and after equilibrium. Color shading can also readily identify and distinguish among areas such as tax incidence, profit, loss, consumer surplus, producer surplus, aggregate output below and above the economy's potential, and the welfare effects of tariffs and quotas.

Color even in relatively simple diagrams can aid students in ways we may not realize. This past term, a principles student explained to me that she had difficulty with the graphs presented on the blackboard. She said she has a certain kind of dyslexia that at times makes her see graphs in reverse. But she noted that graphs in the textbook were much easier to understand because they employ color consistently (e.g., demand curves are blue and supply curves are red). She says she first identifies the curves by color.

If color is to amount to more than face entertainment, it must be used consistently and with forethought.

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