Understanding Color

Connect With Your Audience at a Deeper Level through Smart Use of Color

Many web designers overlook the powerful impact of color on a website. Color is a design element that people react to on a visceral level. Often we don’t even realize we’re reacting to it.

For example, in the U.S. nurses at many hospitals dress in light blues and pale pinks. That’s because these are calming, soothing colors that help patients relax in what can often be a very intimidating environment.

Colors have always been a powerful means of evoking emotion. And emotion is a driving force behind buying decisions. Once you understand your target audience, you can create a color scheme that appeals to that audience — colors that will help drive the actions you need.

What Colors Will Work Best on Your Website?

It is difficult to follow an exact science for color psychology. There is a high degree of subjectivity involved, at both a personal and cultural level, and results are mainly measured and modified by observation.

However, when choosing colors for your site, you must first think of your audience. Is it a global audience? Is it primarily male or female? Older or younger? Western or Eastern? Corporate or casual?

All of these factors affect the choice of color for your site. Navigation and site structure are equally important. But the creative use of color can help build brand recognition, create a sense of comfort, drive conversions and influence how frequently visitors return.

Universal Responses to Color

While any given color may evoke different emotions in different individuals, some colors elicit universal responses.

• Cool colors (calming): blue, green, turquoise, silver
• Warm colors (exciting): red, pink, yellow, gold, orange
• Mixed cool/warm colors: purple, lavender, green, turquoise
• Neutral colors (unifying): brown, beige, ivory, gray, black, white