Fighting programmer colors

Question

I have a couple of pet projects where I'm the sole designer/programmer and I spend too much time changing the user interface to make it easier to use by real users and avoiding bright yellow and green that is so common on "programmer" designs.

Do you have tips to choose a color scheme when you do not have a graphics designer around? How do you avoid creating the typical "programmer" interface?

Answer 1

kuler has a lot of user submitted colour schemes

edit: just remembered... also try colorlovers

Answer 2

Let me tell you a story.

I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to make aesthetic choices - you only have to look at the way I dress to realize I'm justified in my lack of confidence. Anyway, years ago I was put in charge of writing the gui for a new product (the "Clip Editor" in Cineon, for anybody who knows that). I sketched out a design, but asked my boss, the head of sales and marketing, and various "application specialists" for help choosing the colours. Nobody responded, so I said "to hell with it", and chose a colour scheme so ugly I'm sure the beta testers would recoil in horror and demand a change. But they didn't - so it shipped with it. And I heard that customers loved the "bold colours". And not only that, but a few years later a competitor added a program that looked like a direct rip-off of my Clip Editor to their product, and they copied my colour scheme!

Answer 3

For desktop apps, get the colors from the OS. I, personally, want all of my apps to look and feel the same as my OS.

For web apps, I'm not really sure.