We have an application with a built-in stopwatch. If the stopwatch is running the pause button is shown and if it is stopped the play button is shown. Currently the stopwatch itself as well as the button are in neutral colors.
It would be great if the color of the play/pause button could help the user to use the stopwatch more effectivly.
The background needs to stay neutral for technical reasons, so the only design option we have is coloring the button. I've read the discussion about the seperaton of the play and pause button and it makes perfect sense, but again technical reasons prevent me from having two buttons. So, one button on a grey background it is.
Should the running stopwatch with the pause button be green or red?
A green stop button would be a great indicator that the stopwatch is running, but it would be strange to press a green button to stop something. A red stop button would be a great indicator that this is a STOP button, but then the running stopwatch would always show the red button, which is kind of strange.