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Understanding the Importance of Color in Web Design

Making Website Content Easy to Read

The Importance of A Clean Web Layout

Be Smart About Your Use of Links When Designing a Website

Designing Your Website for Different Screen Resolutions and Browsers

Graphics and Images Can Help Your Website Make a Good Impression

Make Your Website Navigation Easy

Using Website Animation and Special Effects Wisely

What Not to Do When Designing a Web Page

Designing for Your Target Audience

Understanding the Importance of Color in Web Design

If you think back to your middle school art class, you may have some vague recollections of lessons about the way colors are supposed to influence the mood of someone who views them. It turns out that what your teacher said about color really is true. People from all different cultures and nations around the world react in basically the same ways when they are exposed to a variety of colors. There have been numerous scientific studies done that show customers will choose one design, room, car, or item of clothing over another simply because of its color.

So what does that have to do with your website? A lot. The latest statistics demonstrate that website visitors form their first impression of your site less than ten seconds after the page begins to load. And one of the first things that a viewer will notice is your color scheme. The colors you choose and the combinations of tints that you put together will give a customer an instant idea of the type of information that may be available on your site, the age and gender of your targeted customer, and the whole attitude of your online business. So, if you are designing a new website or modifying an existing one, you really should put a little thought into how your use of color may be affecting your bottom line.

Primary Colors

As you may remember from art class, there are three basic or primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Each of these colors conveys a particular attitude.

Red is an action color that catches our attention and is easily noticed. That's why stop signs in most nations are painted red. Colors like mauve, burgundy, crimson, and scarlet are related to red and can help to covey action and importance.

Yellow is stimulating and exciting, much like the sun. It can often give a warning like "yield" signs or yellow flames of a campfire do. Yellows like orange, amber, lemon, and gold can make a person uncomfortable if they are too intense or used in too many places.

Blue is considered a peaceful and cool color. Since we see it in the sky every day, it makes a good shade to use as a background. Turquoise, indigo, violet, cyan and aqua are all shades of blue that can be effectively employed in web design.

Secondary Colors

Mixing the primaries with each other plus black or white derives all of the other colors that we see. Many of these secondary hues are useful in different aspects of web design.

Green is the color of nature. Vision studies indicate that people are able to detect more shades of green than any other color. Greens like teal, emerald, lime, and forest remind us of life and natural beauty. They are usually calming and inviting.

Neutral colors are those that do not produce a strong emotion, either negative or positive. They are not considered "warm" or "cool" and therefore are useful to web designers as a palette on which to display products or services that are offered. Beige, taupe, gray, tan, and khaki are all examples of neutral tones.

What Does it Mean?

Now that your memory of color qualities has been jogged a little, let's stop and consider what this information means to a web designer. For one thing, you should understand how the use of too much red or yellow can really turn visitors off. You certainly don't want people reaching your web page only to leave almost instantly because the colors are screaming at them for attention. If you do use red or yellow, try to reserve them for titles or navigation bars that are important for making your site user friendly. The parts of your website that need to be seen in order to figure out what product or service is being offered or to move from one section to the other are where red and yellow can be used effectively. Therefore, headlines work well in red, and boxes with navigation links can often have a yellow background to make them stand out. (Read more about Navigation Links.)

On the other hand, since blue is such a tranquil color, and is sometimes even associated with depression, you don't want to over-use it either. As stated before, it's great as a background, and for outlining text boxes that contain information that you want your visitor to spend a chunk of time reading. Blue will tend to keep a reader feeling calm and encourage him or her to browse around your site, which is always a good thing.

Green also encourages visitors to linger. Shades like sea green or forest green often denote wisdom and depth of knowledge. They can give a reader the sense that the information they are viewing is trustworthy and valuable.

Colors That Complement

Since you don't want people who are browsing your site to be turned away by your color choices, be sure that you don't use tones that compete or "clash" with each other. When you have two very vivid colors close together, viewers often get the idea that they are fighting with each other for their attention. Instead of using bright red and bright green near each other, for example, try diluting one with white. Then your combination will be something like pink and bright green or red and celery green. Those choices will likely be much more appealing.

You could also try separating your two brightest colors by areas of black or a neutral color. If the center of your page is gray or tan, for example, and you have red boxes along one side with product reviews and green boxes along the other side with navigation links, the two bold colors will not conflict with each other.

Consider Your Logo

If you are designing around a logo or brand name that is already in use, be sure to pick colors for the site that complement the logo. You want it to stand out from the rest of the site, but not grab so much attention that the other content is lost. You might want to consider using the colors of your logo in a more muted tone for the rest of the site. For example, if you have a bright blue and green company image you could use paler blue and green for the rest of the content.

Think About Your Customers

When choosing your color scheme, be sure you don't just use combinations and tints that you like personally. Think about who will be visiting your site and what kind of mood you want to project to those customers. If you are selling scholarly first-edition books, for example, you will want to use more muted and "serious" colors than if you are selling skateboarding supplies. That kind of page will require some "high energy" and active colors.

Don't Go Overboard

As a general rule, it is best to limit your website design to two or three basic colors. In some cases you may want to include lighter or darker variations on those colors. When you have fewer colors, it means that file sizes will be smaller and your site will load faster. It will also be more inviting to the readerâ€¦something that should be very attractive to your bottom line. And don't forget the white space! The "openness" of white areas on your page is easy on your readers' eyes and gives a clean, uncluttered feel.

If you do a little experimentation and ask some friends or family members of different age groups for their honest opinion of your color choices, you should be able to come up with a website that is visually appealing to your customers. And that is a very good thing.

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