Color Design Strategies for Educational Animation on Chinese Early-Learning Apps

Abstract

Color plays a central role in shaping the learning experience of preschool children in China’s rapidly expanding early-learning app ecosystem. As digital learning becomes increasingly mobile-based, color design influences not only aesthetic appeal but also perceptual clarity, cognitive load, emotional regulation, and interaction fluency. This paper proposes a comprehensive analysis of color use in Chinese early-learning animation by examining its developmental, pedagogical, cultural, and technological dimensions. Drawing on empirical findings from child visual development, early literacy and numeracy research, interaction design studies, and Chinese cultural symbol systems, the paper identifies eight core domains that structure effective color strategies: functional roles of color, preschool color perception, dominant trends in Chinese early-learning apps, educational color principles, domain-specific learning scenarios, visual accessibility requirements, interaction-driven color needs, and the foundations of a culturally grounded color framework. Across these domains, color is shown to support attention guidance, tone and radical differentiation in literacy tasks, conceptual representation in math, cross-language mapping in bilingual content, and scaffolded task sequencing. At the same time, color design must address challenges related to visual fatigue, color-vision diversity, device variability, and increasing parental concern about overstimulation and myopia. The analysis demonstrates that culturally embedded color meanings—such as the positive emotional valence of red and gold—remain influential in shaping children’s affective responses and can be leveraged to reinforce motivation and emotional stability. The paper concludes by outlining a culturally informed, developmentally aligned framework for color use in Chinese early-learning animation. This framework integrates perceptual development, cultural symbolism, educational goals, and screen-health considerations into a cohesive set of principles that can guide future design practice and research in child-centered digital learning.