Why Color is So Important in Web Design
Humans have been using color as a powerful form of communication for millennia. Colors influence our mood, evoke emotions, and enhance memory recall and retention, so it’s no wonder that marketers and designers pay a lot of attention to how they use color.
When designing a website, we don’t just choose colors because they look nice. Instead, we select them because of the importance they play. Colors help customers remember you and associate you with certain emotions. Colors in design are also a way to organize information and highlight specific elements on your page. But, most of all, colors make your site beautiful and fun to use.
Colors Help You Stand Out
Within 90 seconds of initially viewing a product or a site, consumers make a subconscious judgment about your wares or business. Most of their analysis is based solely on color! Your site’s colors will influence how likely viewers are to remember you later, too, which is why designers spend so much time selecting the right colors for your site as well as logos, print materials, and other branding items. Colors can set you apart from the crowd, which is especially important in web design and any web design company will know this.
Colors Evoke Tone and Emotion
There’s a reason certain colors, like blue and red, get used a lot in design. The colors you use bring different feelings and associations to mind, and designers are always trying to capitalize on an emotional connection with consumers.
For example, if you have a call to action button on your site, you want it to be a warm color, which signifies alertness and energy. Cool colors are used to evoke feelings of tranquility and calmness. Each color can have a different meaning based on its vibrancy, shading, and context, as well as how it is paired with other colors.
We’ve all noticed how color gets used in more obvious ways. For example, the color green is frequently used by both environmentally conscious sites as well as those focused on finance. Green evokes connections to growth and health, which can translate into wellness for the Earth or your pocketbook. You see green, and you think, “Hell, this must be good!”
Red is often used to connect to feelings of power or passion, while purple is the classic color of romance or opulence. Each color has specific feelings that are brought to mind for most viewers, and designers capitalize on these commonalities.
Color Makes Your Site Accessible to All
The use of color is essential when you want to be sure everyone can read your site. Color blindness and other types of visual impairment make reading certain hues more difficult. If you are going to be inclusive to every user. In general, you want your website to be easily read by people with many different visual needs, so high contrast and dark print are always safe choices.
Color Can Lead to Higher Revenue
The use of color within your website can draw readers’ eyes, help them navigate to find what they need, and generally enhance the user experience. This makes their experience on your site more enjoyable, which results in higher conversion rates for you. The careful use of color will not only make your website look great, but it can also keep customers coming back and purchasing from you in the future.
The Importance of Color in Web Design
When you get right down to it, the most important reason to use colors and choose them carefully is that they make your website visually appealing. Color is how you bring balance to function and aesthetics, and they tell a story that you want your customers to remember long after they close their web browsers.
Choosing the right color palette for your website is a complex process, and you have to consider many variables. When you use the right colors, combined with typography, images, and site layout, you provide your users with the right combination of information, emotion, and tone.
Choosing the right colors for your website isn’t just about what colors you like. Your choices should strengthen your branding as well as your overall website design. Selecting your colors is both a science and an art, combining what we know about how colors affect the brain as well as how they tell a story. When done well, your website will look great and bring you the business you need.
