Colour is a vital part of a website’s user experience (UX); as such, finding the right combination of colours is essential in creating more aesthetically pleasing designs that evoke certain feelings in visitors. Achieving this goal requires familiarising yourself with the concept of colour theory for web design and learning the best colour mixings for a visually appealing and emotionally impactful website.
What is Colour Theory in Web Design
Colour theory for web design refers to the practical guidelines for colour mixing and principles that lead to visually appealing and harmonious colour combinations.
What is Colour Psychology in Design
Colour psychology is the study of how colours determine human emotions and behaviours. It represents the complex series of interactions that determine our reaction to colours, such as our personal preferences, our family upbringing and our cultural background.
In web design, colour psychology invokes a desired emotion based on the website’s branding. For example, a psychiatric website may use blue to lull visitors into a sense of calm.
What Are the 7 Types of Colour Theory?
Colour theory is applied in seven different schemes:
- Analogous: A colour scheme using 3 colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel (e.g., blue, blue-green, and green). One colour is chosen as the primary, a second as a supporting colour and the third as the accent.
- Monochromatic: This scheme uses shades and tints of a single colour to create a cohesive, unified look. Black-and-white is the most commonly used colour, but others can be chosen as well.
- Complementary: This scheme uses colours that lie opposite each other on the colour wheel, e.g. yellow/purple, red/green, or blue/orange.
- Split-complementary: This variant uses a base and complementary colour, plus the two colours on each side of the complementary colour.
- Triadic: This combination uses three colours evenly spaced out around the colour wheel. One colour is used as the primary with the other two as accents.
- Tetradic: This combination uses two sets of complementary pairs, forming a rectangle on the colour wheel.
- Square: Similar to the above except that it forms a square on the colour wheel.
Why is Colour Theory Important in Web Design?
Colour plays several crucial roles in the online experience; it helps establish a brand identity, engages and guides visitors, and enhances the overall user experience. Thus, studying colour theory will give designers deeper insight into how colours blend together and how they can combine complementary colours to create a harmonious, visually appealing website that generates leads and boosts user engagement.
How to Use Colour Psychology in Marketing
Here are the best ways to use colour psychology effectively in your marketing:
- Choose the right emotion: Whether you’re choosing your brand colours or deciding on a palette for a new ad, you’ll need to start with the type of emotion you want to invoke in your audience. For example, a playful ad should use bright, cheerful colours like orange or yellow.
- Create a vibrant colour scheme: A vibrant colour scheme allows for some variety while still setting some standards. Analogous, complementary, and monochromatic colour schemes are some of the more commonly used examples.
- Maintain consistency: Ensure that your brand colour scheme remains consistent. Even if your logo changes, if it retains the same colour scheme, people will still remember and recognise it.
- Keep cultural context in mind: Colour psychology n is not universal; one colour that evokes certain emotions in one culture may evoke different ones in another. For example, black is associated with death or mourning in Western cultures but symbolises health and stability in East Asian cultures instead.
- When in doubt, add some blue: Blue is a favourite colour worldwide, and some of the top brands, like LinkedIn and Facebook, use it as their primary colour.
- Run tests: Conduct A/B testing to determine the colour scheme that works best for your site. Try testing two different colour backgrounds in your ads or buttons on your website and see which your audience prefers.
What is the 3-Colour Rule for Websites?
The 3-colour rule refers to using three main colours to create visually appealing and cohesive colour schemes based on the principles of simplicity, harmony, and effective communication. This guideline encourages designers to carefully choose the three colours that best suit their website, promoting a clean, organised, and visually appealing aesthetic.
What is Colour Theory in UX Design?
Colour theory is a key element in UX design as it impacts the psychology of your audience and, thus, how they perceive your brand. A well-thought-out colour palette will elevate your site’s UX from ‘good’ to ‘great’, while a mediocre or bad colour scheme can detract from the user’s experience and even interfere with their ability to use your site.
What is the Best Colour for UX Design?
There is no single “best” colour for UX design; what is considered the “best” will depend on how you want your brand and website to be perceived. If you want your site to be seen as exciting or joyous, it is recommended to use warm colours like red, pink, yellow or orange. If you want your website to invoke calmness and safety, use cool colours like blue, cyan, green or purple.
What is the Danger Colour in UX?
Red is commonly used as the ‘danger colour’ as it is a strong colour that invokes feelings of excitement. Seeing red actually triggers the pituitary gland and raises your heart rate. As such, it is used in buttons or text to grab users’ attention and highlight the urgency of something.
Key Takeaways
Colour theory for web design is more than just aesthetics; it is also an entire psychology. Choosing the right colour scheme for your brand involves careful consideration of the colour combinations you want to use and the emotions you seek to evoke.
Once you choose a palette that works, your website will quickly go from ‘decent’ to ‘excellent’, providing your audience with an excellent user experience and generating leads in the process.
Let BikeBear Help You With Your Website’s Colour Design
BikeBear will help you with the ins and outs of colour theory in web design. Offering the best web design service in Malaysia, our team of professional web designers is ready to provide you with crucial knowledge of colour psychology and how to use it effectively in your online marketing and website development.
Contact us now and find the colour palette that best works for your brand today!
