Web design and colour

Web design Articles by Empire Elements.

Designing web pages with colour in mind

Web design and colour

Research has found that web users form an opinion of a certain website within seconds upon opening a web page. It is also during those critical first few seconds that they decide whether to continue browsing through the site or go to another one. Basically, what draws them to a website consists of several factors such as the design and layout, content and colour scheme.

Colour scheme plays a major role in any web application

colour is very effective in attracting web surfers to a particular site and encouraging them to take action when needed such as register and avail of an email newsletter or buy a product. A website’s colour scheme, therefore, is a vital element of web design which should never be taken for granted by web designers whether novice or professionals.

You may wonder why colour attracts people.

The answer is that colour has a natural influence on the human subconscious mind meaning it’s psychological. In fact, many major companies spend millions of dollars in researching for the right colours for their new products as well as in their marketing and promotional campaigns.

The same principle should be applied in web pages.

In order to come up with an eye-pleasing colour scheme for a website, designers need to have some understanding of colour harmony as well as colour theory. The colour wheel is the basic and most important tool to use when combining different hues. In addition, gaining knowledge on the three major sets of colour schemes – analogous, complementary and monochromatic – is as important.

To give you an idea, analogous refers to hues on the colour wheel that are adjacent to each other. Complementary colours are those located opposite each other on the colour wheel. Examples are red and green, violet and yellow as well as orange and blue. On the other hand, monochromatic refers to using shades of a single colour.

Colours suggest different messages and they can be negative or positive.

But then again, choosing the right hues can elicit positive reaction from web users. It’s the psychological power that works here and this has been proven for many years already especially in the marketing sector.

Perhaps you’ve heard about colours being associated with certain emotions and this is absolutely true. Red, for instance, is associated with love, strength, energy and danger while blue means peace, patience and acceptance. Black signifies style and elegance while white means purity, cleanliness and simplicity. Orange, meanwhile, promotes playfulness, cheerfulness and confidence while green means nature, life, money and harmony.

Developers of commercial websites should really be careful in selecting the appropriate colour scheme that would reflect the products or services being offered by businesses on their sites. The colour and information provided on the site should be in harmony as much as possible. If the colour suits the message, there’s a strong likelihood of attracting visitors. If not, your visitors will go to other sites. Loud colours usually turn off web users hence, it’s essential to choose the right hues to increase traffic and eventually meet business goals like improving sales and profit.

Bookmark this article:

Bookmark: Web design and colour at Del.Isio.Us Bookmark: Web design and colour at Furl Bookmark: Web design and colour at Digg Bookmark: Web design and colour at Google Bookmark: Web design and colour at BlinkBits Bookmark: Web design and colour at BlinkLit Bookmark: Web design and colour at StumbleUpon Bookmark: Web design and colour at BlogMarks Bookmark: Web design and colour at Diigo Bookmark: Web design and colour at Ma.gnolia Bookmark: Web design and colour at Netscape Bookmark: Web design and colour at Netvouz Bookmark: Web design and colour at NewsvineBookmark: Web design and colour at BlogMarksBookmark: Web design and colour at Technorati Bookmark: Web design and colour at Folkd Bookmark: Web design and colour at Reddit Bookmark: Web design and colour at Simpy Bookmark: Web design and colour at SlashDot
Date added: Nov 09, 2007 | Back to article directory | Previous article | Next article | Contact Us | Publish your article |

Web Project Free Quotation

You can reach us weekdays 9am-6pm on 0800 781 81 25

All materials on this site are copyrighted to Empire Elements © 2008