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The first task you should complete in creating a color design for your application is to study your users. If you are designing an application that allows users to assign colors to data or that is used to create color graphics, try looking at how people are already using color in their work. You might consider visiting some graphic artists if you are creating a graphic design tool. Look at the types of tools they have and how they organize the tools. See if you can construct your tool palettes and color palettes in a way that matches how people use their color tools such as colored pencils or paint sets.
When designing interfaces to provide color in your application, avoid using the engineer or hardware model of color. Ideally, you want to translate what you know into what your users expect. Although it's essential for you to understand how the computer produces color so that you can deal with the implications of it, your users operate under a very different model. Most users won't understand hue, saturation, and brightness values in terms of numbers. However, they will understand a tool that provides ranges of color expressing hue, saturation, and brightness. Think about how users can understand color, rather than accurately representing the computer's model of color.
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