The Psychology of Color in Web Design Written by Lala C. Ballatan
Persons engaged in website design, here’s a scoop for you! Would you just like to know that by understanding basics of cognitive psychology around color and patterns, we could further improve our Web design! Designing a Web site does not only concentrate on making web pages of a certain site interesting and impressive. This skill and talent must also be used to ensure user-friendliness of a certain site and must strive to reach widest range of users possible. So what’s this about psychology? It simply implies that by understanding capabilities of human eye, we can produce Website designs that are more user-friendly. Being user-friendly means that our website design will not only cater for normal sighted Internet users but also to those partially sighted, blind or estimated 8-10% of men with red-green colour blindness. If you don’t know anything about vision and colorblindness and their reaction to various designs, then you must start learning now! 'Normal' vision is subject to huge variances. Even size of elements will affect an individual user's perception of colour. The colours and intensity of shades you choose to use in your Website design will be discerned differently by every individual who visits your Website. Inconsistencies in color patterns are affected by changes in ambient lighting levels. It’s like changes in your hair color depending on amount of lighting it was exposed. Some people even see blue colors in some objects like clothing wherein others do not perceive. These persons just happen to have more blue sensitive cones (photosensitive cells which convert light energy into nerve impulses) in their retina. They seem to view world with 'blue-tinted spectacles'. As a web desinger, you have to be aware that these conditions are reasons why your perception of your Web design may be different to other people and certainly are not same with everyone else's.
| | Understand Your ColorWritten by Lala C. Ballatan
Any design on a web application involves effective input of color scheme in order to impress web surfers, instill a certain image or identity associated with kind of web site it represents, and add impact to web pages. However, very few possess talent and skill of developing a harmonious color scheme. There are even very talented Web programmers who can develop just about any kind of application, but, for life of them could not understand anything about color schemes. If you ever wondered where designers get almost-mystical ability to declare if a color is or is not “working” or effective, then this article is for you. It may also help other web surfers, web design enthusiasts, novice and even professional web designers who are interested in elevating their understanding of color schemes and color selection for Website design. Actually, not all people, especially painters who work with colors have uncanny knack or natural ability with understanding color harmony. You can also acquire this skill from a basic understanding of color theory. We challenge you to think like a painter that use a subtractive color method. This method is in stark contrast with light additive method in your beloved computer. This means that, as more of each color is added, you get closer to white light. By telling you to think like a painter, think about colors as combinations of red, yellow, and blue, and realize that, as you add colors, you get closer to black.
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