Emotions and Colors: How to Create a Balance in Web Design?
There are a number of popular idioms that reveal how emotions and feelings have been long associated with colors. For example, red is associated with danger, blue with depression, and green with nature. This is what makes color psychology an interesting topic for today’s web design who want to create a lasting impact on the web user’s mind.
Color influences not only how people feel, but also how they act. People make decisions about a product in 90 seconds or less. And 90% of those decisions are solely based on color. So, the right color choices can help strengthen a brand, encourage sales, and even guide visitors toward specific landing pages.
Having said that, let’s dig deeper into this topic and try to understand how color can change your web design game!
Impact of Color Psychology on the Web
Every successful brand has its choice of color that’s consistent throughout its web design. Take Facebook, for instance. The social media giant uses blue in their logo and website. The color helps the brand encourage communication and promote interaction.
Colors are categorized into two categories according to their placement on the color wheel: warm colors and cool colors: Understanding how these colors affect people will help you design a website that not only looks attractive, but also increases brand awareness.
- Warm colors: These colors tend to be lively and can add life to your web design. They pop best against a black background. Rather than blending into the background, you can pop warm colors on the screen.
- Cool colors: Cool colors contain higher amounts of blue and are more soothing and relaxing than warm colors. They work well with neutral colors, such as white, helping you balance out your color scheme by adding contrast to your designs.
Why does Color Psychology Matter in Web Design?
When used effectively in web design, colors enable online users to find the information they need and respond to your CTA (Call to Action). Studies reveal that color can increase overall brand recognition by 80%.
Additionally, using the right color combinations in your web design is the way to better navigation and readability. In fact, colors can improve readership by 40% and comprehension by 73%. Other vital benefits include:
- Positive user experience (UX)
- Consistent branding and product messaging
- Low bounce and high customer retention rates
- Effective marketing and advertising campaigns
- High customer satisfaction and overall product success
Different Colors and their Psychological Impact
There’s no denying that emotions and colors are linked to each other and can help UI/UX designers harness the power of color psychology in web design. According to a case study from Moz, an online slot machine business changed its CTA button from green to yellow and this generated a staggering 187.4% rise in the conversion rate.
The right color combination will create the right mood for your website. Try different color schemes and track the colors with the maximum impact on your targeted audience.
- Red: This color evokes passion, energy, and excitement, making it perfect for websites that want to create a sense of urgency, such as e-commerce.
- Yellow: Yellow is cheerful and warm, and can be used for websites that are promoting products or services associated with happiness, such as travel or food.
- Blue: Blue is a calming color that creates a sense of security and reliability, often used by banks and financial institutions. Also, it is a popular color for social media.
- Green: Green is fresh and natural, often associated with nature. It is an excellent color choice for websites promoting health or eco-friendly products.
- Purple: Purple represents luxury and elegance, often used by luxury brands. It is a popular choice for websites promoting art or design.
How to Use Color Psychology in Web Design?
Now that you know colors can significantly influence your website visitors, let’s break down the process of using color psychology in web design. Follow these simple steps to get started with your web design journey:
Step #1: Set Your Goals
Before you choose any color scheme, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with your web design. Know who you are designing for and what are their needs and preferences.
For example, if your target audience is children, choose vibrant and playful colors. Make sure your brand identity aligns with the color choices you make.
Step #2: Understand Color Psychology
Once you have set your goals, start familiarizing yourself with color psychology. Understand what emotions are commonly associated with different colors. For instance, purple can be linked to luxury, creativity, and imagination. Whereas, yellow is associated with optimism, energy, and happiness.
Also, using bold colors like red and yellow to highlight your CTA buttons is an effective way to encourage users to take the desired actions.
Step #3: Choose Color Combinations Wisely
As you want your website to evoke desired emotions, create color palettes that will complement each other. Choose a primary color and a few secondary colors to create a sense of harmony and balance.
Try the 60-30-10 rule for color combination, indicating 60% of a dominant color, 30% of secondary, and the last 10% to be an accent.
Step #4: Use Color Contrast to Improve Readability
Color contrast is a great tool to complement your website design. It is the difference in brightness between two different colors and can improve the accessibility of your web design, too.
Use a color scheme with enough contrast that makes your text and other design elements stand out (or blend in with the background). Make sure it complements your website content that complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
Step #5: Test and Iterate
Web design is not a one-size-fits-all approach and requires a lot of A/B testing. So, test different color schemes and combinations to see how users respond to them. Check how they look on different browsers, devices, and screens,
Measure how different color schemes affect different user experience metrics, such as engagement, conversions, and retention rates. Based on the data, refine your color choices.
The Sum Up
The relationship between colors and emotions is an important aspect of quality web designs. The right color scheme encourages users to take actions on your website that you want them to take. Whereas, the wrong scheme can turn visitors away. Follow your instinct along with available research and resources. Finally, test and retest to guarantee the best color scheme that simplifies the overall UX design.
