How Do You Choose Colours for Effective Web Design?

One facet of a well-designed website is its colour scheme. choice of colours is vital in creating the look that the site's owner wants to portray. if the site's appearence doesn't meet the users expectations, then they will leave and probably never return to the site. This is often the reason why a web site isn't doing as well as it should be.

Knowing all about colour perception can make life a whole lot easier when deciding on a colour scheme for a website. knowing which colours can irritate and which can calm is important in giving the user the right impression and experience of the website. why would you want to anger a user when you want them to buy from your web site?

Colour contrast and balance is another technique to be aware of. It can be used to point users in the direction of to certain pages on the website.

Below is a list of the best-used colours and their emotional connotations.

Red is linked with strength, fire, blood and passion. if it is used sparingly on a light background, it can draw attention and emphasise.

Blue is the most frequently used colour and it can symbolise confidence, loyalty and royalty. the darker end can mean strength while the paler end can be used to represent fantasy and dream.

The colour green can summarise feelings of durability, safety and harmony. its also a capable colour to use to highlight calm and relaxation.

Green is associated with trees, wealth & envy. The most calming colour in the spectrum, it's extremely popular with web sites that are linked to nature.

White is linked to clean & simple designs, which means that it's favoured by numerous design firms. It stirs up feelings of cleanliness, simplicity, honesty & innocence.

Stirring up feelings of passion, sex, fire & aggression, red is a highly charged colour. the brighter side of red is bold, which means that it can be used to raise awareness.

Grey can be linked with respect, humility, decay & boredom. it's used heavily to concieve shiny gradients in designing websites to give a slick, modern feel to a web site.

Orange is related strongly to spirituality & healing. it's the colour that symbolises Buddhism & it has a soothing energy about it. it's a bold colour that is not as bright as yellow yet not a deep as red.

In website design, purple is not used very often, perhaps because it is seen as a girly colour. it's also associated with royalty, romance and wisdom.

Grey can be an odd colour as it isn't strong. it is used to make stylish, classy and calm web sites. it's used heavily on tech web sites.

The role of colour isn't just to make a website look good, it can be used to evoke feelings & emotions from the end-user. choosing colours that anger the end user can have damaging effects on your site, whereas cleverly picking might mean that the site lives up to the user's expectations.