Challenge B: Videos

Color Psychology
Authors: Kushank Virdi, Sai Nihal Diddi and Khushi Wadhwa

FINAL VIDEOS

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

PLAN (Ideate, Sketch, Elaborate)

Ideation

During our brainstorming sessions, our team – Sai , Khushi, and Kushank – wanted to choose a topic that connects psychology, creativity, and everyday experiences. We started by listing ideas that influence human behavior, such as advertising tricks, consumer decisions, and emotional triggers in marketing. After some discussion, we realized color psychology fits perfectly because it’s something everyone experiences daily without realizing it.

To build our concept, we looked at color charts from branding case studies, short marketing clips on YouTube, and brand logo collections from sites like Behance and Pinterest. We observed patterns, for instance, how red dominates food chains, blue covers banking and tech, and green appears in eco-friendly brands. This helped us decide to design three short, story-driven videos, each focusing on a specific emotional theme:

1. Video 1 – “Why You Crave Fries When You See Red?” explores how warm colors like red, yellow, and orange trigger appetite and energy.
2. Video 2 – “Why You Trust Blue Without Realizing It?” explains how cool colors such as blue and green evoke calmness, trust, and stability.
3. Video 3 – “What Your Favorite Brand Color Says About You?” connects personal emotions with colors like pink, purple, black, white, and brown.

We decided to use a dialogue-based format because it feels conversational and relatable, especially for a young audience. Each member contributed ideas for tone and examples – Khushi focused on engagement and humor, I handled educational flow and facts, and Kushank helped shape brand examples and transitions.

Our most promising prototype idea was to create short animated videos combining real-brand colors and conversational storytelling. This format keeps the learning light, visual, and easy to follow, while still grounded in psychological concepts.

Video 1: “Why You Crave Fries When You See Red?”

Khushi:

Ever wondered why your stomach growls every time you see a red logo? Don’t lie, I know that McDonald’s drive-thru look gets you too.

That’s not hunger. That’s color psychology tricking your brain.

Kushank:

Red triggers urgency and impulsiveness – it literally makes your heart beat faster. Your brain thinks, “Act now!” That’s why food brands love it. You don’t think – you just order.

Nihal:

Add yellow into the mix – the color of joy, warmth, and childhood memories and suddenly you’re 10 again, holding fries and a soda.

Then comes orange, excitement and appetite in one. It’s the secret ingredient in how Fanta keeps you coming back.

Khushi:

Here’s the wild part – 90% of food brands use red. Not because it’s pretty, but because it works.

So next time you open Uber Eats or pass a KFC, stop for a second and ask yourself – am I hungry, or hypnotized?

Spoiler: It’s hypnosis.

Video 2: “Why You Trust Blue Without Realizing It?”

Nihal:

What if I told you the reason you trust Facebook, PayPal, and even Twitter has nothing to do with logic – and everything to do with color?

Yep, blue is the world’s calmest con artist.

Khushi:

Blue reminds us of the sky and the sea – it makes us feel calm, safe, and loyal. Tech brands use it to whisper, “Relax, you can trust us.”

And you do. You scroll, you swipe, you buy – peacefully.

Kushank:

Then comes green – the color of balance, growth, and health. That’s why brands like Spotify, Starbucks, and WhatsApp use it to feel natural and trustworthy.

It’s not just color – it’s emotional engineering.

Nihal:

Together, blue and green make you feel productive, protected, and at peace – exactly what tech wants.

So next time you open a blue app, just remember… it’s not your choice. It’s psychology.

Khushi:

And it’s working perfectly.

Video 3: “What Your Favorite Brand Color Says About You?”

Kushank:

Let’s play a game – what do Barbie, Cadbury, and Mercedes all have in common?

They’re all using color to control how you feel about them.

Khushi:

Pink means sweet, playful, and nostalgic – that’s why it’s the go-to for donut shops and beauty brands.

Purple screams royalty, dreams, and wealth – expensive color, expensive feeling.

Nihal:

Black is power. Control. Luxury. That’s why every high-end brand wears black proudly – Audi, LV, Mercedes.

White, on the other hand, is purity and simplicity. Apple and Nike use it to say, “We’re clean. We’re elite.”

Kushank:

And brown – the color of reliability, warmth, and comfort. That’s why you crave chocolate when you’re sad.

Color psychology isn’t just about logos – it’s about emotion. Theirs, and yours.

Khushi:

Now that you know — which color controls you the most?

PRINCIPLES APPLIED

Our design closely follows Mayer’s Educational Multimedia Design Principles to make sure the content is not only interesting but also effective for learning:

1. Multimedia Principle – We combine narration, dialogue, and visuals (brand logos, colors, animations) instead of using text alone. This helps learners process both words and visuals together.
2. Contiguity Principle – When a color or brand is mentioned in the narration, it appears on screen at the same time. This avoids split attention and keeps the learner focused.
3. Coherence Principle – We removed unnecessary sounds, transitions, or text that could distract from the main message. The visuals and narration stay directly tied to the concept being explained.
4. Signaling Principle – Important points, like color names or emotional keywords, are highlighted visually with bold color emphasis or screen focus cues to guide attention.
5. Modality Principle – We use spoken narration and dialogue instead of large text blocks. This allows the viewer to focus on the visuals while listening, reducing cognitive load.
6. Personalization Principle – The friendly conversational style between the three of us makes the information feel more engaging and human, encouraging connection and curiosity.

By applying these principles, our videos aim to balance creativity with clarity — helping viewers understand that colors in branding are not random but carefully designed to influence emotions and choices

PEER FEEDBACK:

Peer Feedback Received by Nihal

(@Julia)
They really liked our topic on colour psychology in branding and found it creative and interesting. They said our dialogue format fits well with Mayer’s Personalization Principle because it feels friendly and easy to follow. They also liked how we divided the videos into colour themes, which matches the Segmenting Principle. Their main suggestion was to create a more detailed storyboard to show how visuals and narration will work together. They also recommended adding visuals like logos or colour examples to help viewers understand better, connecting to the Dual Coding Theory.

(@Katenelson)
They thought our topic was fun, relatable, and educational at the same time. They liked our use of humour and dialogue, saying it keeps the tone natural and supports Mayer’s Modality and Personalization Principles. They appreciated the clear organization by colour themes, which links to the Segmenting Principle. Their suggestions were to highlight key colour words or emotions using signaling and to maybe end each video with a short reflection question for viewers. Overall, they felt our idea was creative and well thought out.

Peer Feedback Received by Kushank

(@emmalee)
The parts Emma liked was that the topic encourages viewers to see colours differently, especially through the use of recognizable logos and a conversational, humorous style that feels natural for social media. They also appreciated how we ended the script using a question to increase audience engagement. Their main suggestions were to think carefully about how we present the colours on screen, whether through splashes of colour or text in matching colours and to add a short introduction on colour psychology at the start.

(@fanxiong)
Fanxiong found our prototype engaging, clear, and educational. They liked how we used three short videos to apply the Segmenting Principle and familiar brands to make the theory relatable through the Personalization Principle. Also mentioned, our narration and pacing kept the content interesting and easy to follow. Their suggestion was adding visual highlights like colour switches or transitions to emphasize key points, ending with a short summary to tie everything together, and including accessibility features such as captions, contrast, or audio descriptions to make the videos more inclusive.

Peer Feedback received by Khushi

(@nicocai)
Your “Color Psychology” prototype effectively links everyday brand encounters to core psychological concepts. Across the three short videos, you demonstrate how color shapes emotion and choice: the red/yellow piece uses brisk pacing and humor to prime attention and appetite, while the blue/green piece sustains a calmer tone aligned with trust and balance. Adherence to Mayer’s Coherence Principle- clean visuals and focused narration- supports processing, and consistent brand examples (McDonald’s, PayPal, Apple) aid transfer to real contexts. To strengthen learning, consider more explicit Signaling (on-screen keywords/highlights) and brief end-of-video recap slides to consolidate key takeaways.

(@mdonkers)
Your prototype presents psychological constructs in a clear, relatable format that reflects thoughtful application of multimedia learning principles; humor, pacing, and real-world examples align well with Contiguity and Coherence. The cross-video flow indicates strong planning and collaboration. For transparency and replicability, include a brief methods note listing production tools/software and accessibility steps (captions/transcripts). I also recommend outlining an evaluation plan (viewer feedback and engagement metrics) and adding a concise “Next Steps” section to articulate the project’s trajectory. Overall, the work is engaging, well-structured, and learner-centered.

REFLECT AND REFINE

Team Reflection

Our topic selection definitely helped with our goal to reach a wider audience, this could also be seen in the feedback that we received. Since Color Psychology is a concept that affects many people, readers tend to be naturally curious about it.
Ending with reflective questions also complimented our goal to increase engagement by encouraging viewers to think beyond the content in the videos.
Another strength was the way humour and dialogues were used to create a conversational tone, making the videos feel approachable and easy to follow. Organizing the content by colour themes further supported clarity which allows viewers to focus on one idea at a time without feeling overloaded.

The peer feedback helped us understand many aspects of our project that we can improve. A common suggestion was to add stronger visual cues like color switching and transitions. Another valuable suggestion was to be more accessible by including captions to our videos and adding each colour’s summary. We think it definitely aligns with our goal to be more mindful of our audience’s needs. It was also suggested to add a short introduction at the beginning. However, it was a challenge to add a very descriptive introduction on what color psychology is in our videos without making it redundant and long.  Overall, the peer feedback encouraged us to think more carefully about the design balance, such as how to keep our messaging direct, engaging, and informative.

Based on the feedback we received, we made some small but meaningful changes to our prototype. We focused on making important colour words stand out more clearly on the screen and used smoother transitions between scenes so the video would flow better. We also slowed down the narration slightly to give viewers short pauses to process the information. Along with that, we made sure the tone stayed consistent across all three videos and added visuals like brand logos and images that matched the colours being discussed. We also made some content changes. For example, we added the colour white to the second video to balance the content so each video covered three colours equally. This helped give proper attention to each colour. We also changed some dialogues to make them less repetitive and more direct, added captions to improve accessibility, and used stronger visual cues for clarity. These changes made the videos easier to follow, more polished, and more enjoyable to watch.
We decided to change our titles to be more inclusive of all the colours we were discussing in the video. We also thought that in order to improve viewer experience we should switch to 1 character per video as a narrator but as a social experiment we did use 3 characters in our video 2 to see what will be better received.

Being specific and consistent with prompts was really important, since even small details could lead to changes in the character’s look or demographics if not clearly defined – and that made the process time-consuming at times. Most of the AI tools we used were paid, so finding the right resources took effort. We had to make sure our characters had the right visual look and tone of voice to match the message – for example, using a more upbeat tone for Video 1 versus a calmer tone for Video 2. There were also moments where AI didn’t respond as expected, like in Video 3 when the character walked through a car door instead of inspecting it. We even debated making the presentation ourselves since it would’ve been easier to compile, but we knew it might not be as engaging. The logos we used to represent brands also had to be modified to avoid copyright issues, which added another layer of learning and adaptation to the process. Audio syncing was an additional issue we were experiencing.  

We will refine our prompt design by explicitly stating potential biases to avoid stereotypical characters and specifying demographics only when necessary. We will also improve audio synchronization by adopting better editing tools and using transcript captioning to ensure that the captions are in accordance with the frame and hence, enhance clarity and accessibility.

One major strength of using this type of multimedia is that learning becomes easier when ideas or concepts are explained through videos with visuals, images, and narration reflecting Mayer’s Dual Coding Theory. It helps learners connect with the content more quickly than through text alone. Another strength is that it keeps learners engaged – the dialogue, color themes, and animations make the content feel more personal and interactive, which is in accordance with Mayer’s Personalization Principle and Multimedia Principle. A key limitation is that it can be very time-consuming since it requires multiple tools and careful coordination, which can be challenging for beginners. This is also in consideration with the Cognitive Load Theory to ensure we do not overwhelm the learner with information. Another limitation is that if the visuals, narration, or transitions are not balanced properly, they can distract viewers from the main message instead of supporting it, leading again to extraneous cognitive load. Therefore, maintaining the right pacing and simplicity is important.

AI Generation & Bias Analysis

AI Video Generation

Since we divided the videos among ourselves, each of us used the AI tools we were most comfortable with. Kushank and Khushi used Canva AI to generate the images, while Nihal used Gemini to create images based on the prompts. We then used 11Labs to generate the audio from the dialogues we wrote. After that, we fed the images into Grok AI, which has a feature that turns them into animated videos. Finally, we combined the audio and animations in CapCut. We made a few adjustments to ensure the audio stayed in sync with each scene.

Sample Prompt Used for Image Generation

Scene 7: “White and Clarity” — Transition to Nihal
Dialogue:
“And then comes white — the color of clarity, simplicity, and new beginnings. It’s like hitting reset for your mind.” 

Visuals / Animation Idea:
• Show Nihal in a 2D animation style, wearing all-white clothing.
• He should be standing in a very bright, clean, and simple room.
• The scene should feel very calm and serene.
• Use a color palette of mostly white and silver.
• To match the dialogue, have some white sheets of paper gently float up and dissolve into the air.

Bias Analysis

In all the videos, the images were generated almost exactly based on the prompts. However, in videos 1 and 2, the characters appeared to be Western and white, which reflects a Eurocentric bias. Since our prompts referred to our prototype’s narrations, there were instances where LLM models would confuse it with “Character Names” as Kushank, Nihal and Khushi and automatically created people of color for those names, assuming they were only associated with India or other parts of Asia, which is stereotypical. Apart from that, we believe there were no other noticeable biases, as our prompts were quite descriptive and clear.

References

ElevenLabs. (2025). ElevenLabs Text to Speech (October 23 version) [AI voice generator & TTS platform].
https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech

Canva. (2025). Canva Magic Studio (October 23 version) [AI design suite].
https://www.canva.com/magic/

Google DeepMind. (2025). Gemini (October 23 version) [Large multimodal model family].
https://deepmind.google/models/gemini/

xAI. (2025). Grok (October 23 version) [AI assistant & real-time search model].
https://x.ai/grok

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (October 23 version) [AI conversational assistant].
https://chatgpt.com/

University of Victoria, EDCI 337. (2023). Module 5: Storytelling and Creating Video (Nov 10–23) [Course module]. Retrieved from https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2023/10/06/module-3-storytelling-and-creating-video-oct-15-28/ 

YouTube. (n.d.). How to Make an Animated Video Using Canva and AI (Free & Easy) [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg68e1CLAtc.

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION

Kushank

In this project I worked on Video 1 where I researched and tested different tools to bring our ideas to life. I used Canva and ChatGPT for image generation, Grok for animating still images, ElevenLabs for audio and CapCut for putting everything together into a video. A big part of my contribution was documenting and sharing the whole process with my teammates so they could follow the workflow and get the same results in their tasks. I also participated in team discussions, brainstorming and planning the work to keep us aligned and moving forward. Beyond the video I wrote parts of our blog post, the “Understand” phase and parts of the “Reflect and Refine” phase to capture our process and decisions.

Things that could have been done better: leaving more space in our planning for technical challenges. While we were orchestrating everything together our team faced unexpected issues with syncing audio with video which turned out to be more complex than we thought. We also faced problems with image generation tools that didn’t maintain character consistency across different outputs. These experiences showed me the importance of having some flexibility in the project timeline and allot time accordingly to deal with such unexpected issues.

Working on this project has been a really good learning experience, I got to research and explore many AI tools and was fascinated by how these have evolved over time. Working with a team was also a valuable experience as it taught me the importance of clear communication, collaboration, adapting to different working styles and handling constraints to reach a common goal.

Nihal

My contribution to this group project was creating the animated video for the second part, where we focused on the colors blue, green, and white. I began by exploring the significance of these colors, such as their use in company logos and banks, and conducted research using ChatGPT. I then divided the video into nine scenes, with three dedicated to each color. Throughout the process, I actively discussed ideas with my team about how each scene should look, how to design them effectively, and how to incorporate the feedback we received. After finalizing the layouts, I used Gemini to generate images, Grok to create animations, 11Labs for text-to-speech, and CapCut to combine everything. Looking back, I could have used smoother transitions instead of “glitch” effects to better reflect the calm, trust, and balance theme. Adding ambient background music and short pauses would also have made the video more engaging and easier to follow. In addition, I contributed to writing the project’s strengths and limitations, the description for Video 2, and discussions on biases and other parts of the project. Overall, this experience taught me a lot and motivated me to create videos about computer science topics to support my learning and better understand complex concepts using AI. It also inspired me to explore more video software tools and improve my creative skills.

Khushi

11 Labs was an amazing resource and using AI for graphics was definitely tedious but totally worth it. I realized how important specificity in prompts really is. Creating multiple graphics while keeping each one unique was a bit tricky because I didn’t want to drag it on for too long, but I still wanted the messaging to come through clearly. There’s only so many examples you can show before it starts to feel repetitive. Still, it was a huge step up from making the same old Canva presentations. Overall, it was such a great learning experience and really opened my eyes to how many new and different kinds of AI tools we have now.