Color and Web Design
by Colleen Happ

Color is one of the most important but least understood elements of web design today. Whether they know it or not, visitors to a site respond to colors and other visual elements on the site on a psychological level. Color affects the emotion of the audience, and emotion drives decision-making. An intrigued visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site -- whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell products or services. If the colors are unsuitable, the eye will reject the site and your product may be rejected too, no matter how good it is.

A well-considered color scheme is frequently the difference between an okay web site and a great web site. It can also make a site unusable if the scheme used is too inconsistent or outrageous and hard on the eye.

Keep it Simple
A color palette that uses three or fewer overall colors contributes to the clarity of a web page. The reader will be able to find information quicker on a simple site versus a complex site that may make them feel frustrated and lost.

Use White Space!
This relates to the previous point of keeping it simple. There are a lot of sites with too much information cluttering up the screen. Your audience will have trouble searching for navigation and the information they need amongst a bunch of clutter. White space balances colors, lets the design breathe and can make a large site feel less complex. If a customer is not overwhelmed, they will stay at your site longer.

Know Your Audience
Designers have to know who the target audience is before choosing a color scheme. Before you begin your design, you should ask yourself what colors the audience would find compelling and right for your product.

Different colors evoke different emotions in different cultures. This is important to keep in mind on the web if your site has an international audience. For example, in China red symbolizes happiness and good luck, in India it symbolizes purity and in South Africa it symbolizes mourning.

To complicate matters further, many colors have both positive and negative associations in the same culture. In North America, for example, black can symbolize death in some instances and formality in others.

Web Designers should also use different colors if their target audience is a specific gender or age. For example, bright, primary colors like red yellow and blue are great for kids sites, but if you are designing a site for an audience over fifty you may want to use desaturated, softer colors. Younger audiences also tolerate a black or dark background with lighter text better than an older audience.

In general terms, here are the meanings of a few basic colors:

Temperatures of Colors
Yes, colors have perceived temperatures! The perception of your site will be affected by your choice of warm or cool colors. Cool colors are water and sky colors like blue and purple; warm colors are on the opposite end of the color wheel: red, orange and yellow.

Below is an example of how the temperature of a color can affect how the message is perceived. The red text will be perceived as more vibrant and urgent than the purple text.

If you have a calm and reassuring message you want to get across, (i.e. for a spa) color can affect the tone and mood.

The Importance of Contrast
Contrast between colors on a web page can help draw attention to certain elements.

Contrast between text and its background is a necessity for legibility. The word on the right has more contrast with its background and is easier to read.

The different elements on your web site (i.e. the menu and body of the page) should also contrast or they will start to blend together. The contrast will help your audience distinguish between the different elements leading to less frustration and a more enjoyable experience when they visit your site.

Monitor Considerations
Color behaves differently on screen than in print. Light shines out at the viewer rather than bouncing off the surface of paper. white colors can appear very bright. Bright, saturated colors can appear a lot stronger on screen than in print as well, so you must beware. Viewers settings on their monitors will also affect how colors appear.

Color Design Links

• Here is a link to a great primer on the color wheel and how colors combine: colormatters
• Colorschemer is a great color tool. It helps you create color schemes, match colors and determine the color used in graphics.
• Colorimpact a similar tool to colorschemer. Very useful!

Color is a powerful design tool. Strong reactions to color from the audience of a site can assist in such things as brand confidence, sales growth, and readership. The web designer must match the colors they choose to the message and image they want to get across to the web site's customer.

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