Colour has an incredible psychological effect on people. Based on our culture, preferences and learned cues, people interpret colours in very specific ways – and this can be used to inform and steer the user’s experience. Colour theory online refers to the principles of combining colours to attract people toward your brand and its offerings (Focus Designer, 2012).
Contrast is very important when displaying text online. If the text and background are the same colour and there is no contrast, this means that the text will not be readable. Best practice is to use a light background colour and a dark colour for the text. Black text on a white or light grey background works well. Contrast is also a good way to draw your reader to and differentiate between different aspects of the page.
Colours also hold different meanings and associations for people. Ensure that you know these meanings for the audience that you are targeting – for example, red signifies luck in Asian cultures, but danger in many western cultures.
• Red is used for warnings, error messages and problems.
• Green is used for successful actions, next steps and correct submissions.
• Blue is best used for hyperlinks.
Your Call to Action is one of the most important parts of your website and can be displayed as a link or button. As this is meant to attract the eye, choose a colour that stands out. When Dmix tested this out, as you can see in this example, they experienced an increase of 72% in conversions by using the more striking red button instead of the green one (Chopra, 2010).
