Color Psychology for Webpages
|
|
|
| 2.0/5.0 (3 votes total) |
|
|
|
Bud Smith October 16, 2006
|
Colour is an aspect of a website that is often picked haphazardly
and without any thought from a beginner web designer. The lesser known
quality of the colour of a website is that it can greatly affect the
mood of your visitors. It is because of this that a websites colours
need to be picked carefully.
Other than the mood of the site, the colour can affect your visitors in the more known ways:
Too many bright colours may miss direct the user attention.
Too much of one colour many become irritating.
But the first point about colour that is not well known is that
colour is extremely symbolic. Just think, how often have your heard the
phrases that someone is "green with envy", "blue" or can “see red."
These symbolic influences come from when we are growing up. Name
something Green, people say trees, name something blue, people say
water. We have come to associate colours with where each colour is
predominantly found. We can also summarise the traits for each colour.
Warm Colours
Red
Symbolises: Passion, fire, love, lust, war, violence, blood, and aggression
Suitable Uses: Where the aim is to motivate an individual to take action, convey a warning, or stop the user.
Some believe that: It stimulates the appetite and makes objects seem closer and larger.
When using different shades of red on a website, be careful.
Because of the way the eye sees red, pink (which is a light shade of
red) does not go with red. Also bright red can be quite irritating if
used over large areas.
Pink
Symbolises: Romantic, calming, cute, candy, soft and feminine
Suitable Uses: When you want to appeal to a users caring or romantic side.
Orange
Symbolises: Vibrant and warm, orange is associated with autumn,
pumpkins, citrus and Halloween. It is like a less passionate red. Suitable Uses: Could be used for food sites, nature sites.
Some believe that: It can convey warmth, assurance, stimulate
the appetite, symbolise health, stimulates the mind and provides
emotional lift. Also it is believed that it requires the eye to focus,
therefore objects seem closer and larger. Orange is one colour that would be good in moderation, avoid over-use.
Yellow
Symbolises: sunshine, caution, construction, happy, cheerful,
warmth, hope, light, energy, weakness or illness, or symbolize
cowardice. Suitable Uses: To make a webpage seem brighter and more spring like.
Some believe that: It stimulates the nervous system as well as the mind, makes objects seem closer and larger.
Like red, it captivates the eye, but can be an irritant if over-used.
Cool Colours
Green
Symbolises: spring, renewal, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, health, growth (vegetation) and wealth (money).
Suitable Uses: Great for websites about money and growing.
Some believe that: It lowers the blood pressure, relaxes the
nervous system, calms the mind and creates a feeling of freshness. Also
does not require the eye to focus, therefore objects and walls seem
farther away. Blue
Symbolises: sky, sea, intelligence, reassurance, and trust but can also signify depression and sadness.
Suitable Uses: Make a website feel formal.
Some believe that: It does not require the eye to focus, therefore objects and walls seem farther away.
Purple
Symbolises: creativity, spiritual and mysterious.
Some believe that: is spiritual, mysterious and a very subduing colour.
Deep purple is associated with royalty and richness while lavender is associated with romance and nostalgia.
Neutral Colours
Black
Symbolises: power, elegance, and sophistication, death (Western culture), evil, anger and sadness.
Just to be on the safe side, do not use over a wide area.
White
Symbolises: cleanliness, purity, and spirituality. It represents
life and marriage in Western cultures, but it represents death in
Eastern cultures.
Great as an accent or background colour because it makes other colours seem more vivid and bold
Grey
Symbolises: conservativeness, security, maturity and reliability, but it can also signify gloominess and sadness.
Brown
Symbolises: readability and stability, the hearth, home and the earth.
Web safe palettes
Although modern computers are capable of displaying millions of
colours on the screen, Web design is limited to only 216 colours. The
reason for this is that Mac computers and PC's both use completely
different colour palettes. However, they have 216 colours that are
common to both. These 216 colours are considered “Web safe". Using the
216 Web safe colours means that your Web site colours will look fairly
consistent on different computers (Mac or PC), different operating
systems (Windows or Mac), as well as different browsers (Internet
Explorer and Firefox, to name two). Tips and Ideas
Use a single colour for your website design, but change the intensity of it to create other colours but to keep unity.
Try 2 pick 2 colours that are related, but not to similar.
Create contrasting colour designs with contrasting colours, like a warm and cool colour mix.
Try a colour that is getting close to white, and a dark colour.
Use white backgrounds with black text for ease of readability
and when in doubt use red to draw the eye to your subject matter. Use
caution when using any colours text. You want your content to be
readable and easy on the reader's eyes.
Keep your audience in mind
There is no one colour that sells better, but the wrong colours can hurt sales.
Limit your colour palette to no more than three colours to reduce visual clutter.
Use colours that are appropriate to the theme of your web site.
Use colours found in key photos or graphics on your web page for added harmony.
Avoid harsh oversaturated colours. De-saturate colours to approximate colours found in nature and textiles.
Improving colour picking skills
The great fine artists are masters at manipulating the emotions
through colour. Many of the principles they employ can be applied to
web design. Learn how to choose colours to set the right mood in your
web design from colour principles and methods in fine art. |