For those of us who can see, colour plays a crucial role in how we perceive the objects and scenes we look at. In fact, colour plays a very powerful role in stimulating our emotions and influencing our psychology. If we apply this concept to website design, we can understand that the colour of the web interface is a key factor in establishing the image of a website.
In December 2015, an article by Qi Yue and Sun Zan, of Changchun University of Science and Technology as well as Ji Lin Vixo Pictures Co. Ltd respectively, was published from China regarding this phenomenon. Here, they defined emotion as “one’s visual perception arousing from the influence of a colour”. They then went on to describe how experienced website designers would use colour to evoke certain emotions within their site visitors. We will now go through a list of the colours they have examined and which emotions they were paired with.
Red is an exciting colour and is usually correlated with feelings of impulse, anger, enthusiasm and vitality. There are few websites that will use red as their main colour because it sticks out too much like a sore thumb, but it is commonly used for emphasis and attention-seeking areas of the site. Ever notice how sale tags are always red? Except for company logo colours
Green is neither cold nor warm, but evokes a sense of harmony, quietness, health or safety. Due to its widespread correlation in relation to human beings, prosperity, and life, the colour green is commonly used in websites that are related to nature or health, including educational or public relation sites.
Yellow is a bright colour that symbolizes joy, hope, wisdom and light. Lighter shades of yellow are commonly used in websites geared towards women and cosmetics while darker shades of yellow are used in sites that express nobility, brilliance, and elegance.
Blue is a colour that gives viewers a strong sense of security and the feeling of peace, elegance, and reliability. Due to its great pairing with a wide range of different colours, blue is the most common colour to be used in website design.
Great website designers should be skilled in choosing specific colours to target their clients’ audiences. User-oriented design requires not only a good choice of colours, but thoughtful placement of those colours on the website in order to improve user experience or to catch the viewer’s eye. A great designer will also find a perfect harmony between what is beneficial and what is lagging in stimulation so that your colours not only match your company’s logo, but also its personality.
CryoDragon is a web design and development company serving Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, GTA and surrounding areas. And we know how to make good use of different colour schemes! Choose us to work on your next web design project, and receive a free quote here!
Reference: Yue Q, Zan S. 2015. Emotional Communication of Web Color Design. Journal of Simulation, 3(6), 6-7.
