The Dominant Colors of Common Website Qualities

by anthony on 07/26/12 at 2:30 pm

Choosing colors for your website is no easy task. With so many colors and color combinations to choose from, where does a designer begin? The color of your site is important because it influences how users feel about your site. Choose the wrong color, and you’ll repel users from your site. Choose the right color, and you’ll attract them to use your site. To find the right color, you have to know what qualities you want your site to exude. Then you have to know the dominant colors that are strongly associated with those qualities.

Joe Hallock’s research revealed that there are dominant colors that people associate with common website qualities. Here’s a list of the dominant color for each quality based on his research. Knowing these color/quality associations will help you choose colors that make users feel what you want them to feel when they visit your site.

Trust

If trust is an important quality you want users to feel when they visit your site, then use the color blue.

Security

Blue is also associated with security. This makes sense because both trust and security relate to safety. If your site deals with sensitive content, use blue to make users feel safe.

Reliability

It’s no surprise that blue is also associated with reliability. Trust, security and reliability all fall under the same emotional umbrella.

Fun

If your site involves games and entertainment, use orange and yellow on your site to evoke fun.

Inexpensive

If your site sells things on the cheap, orange and yellow are colors that will help make users feel that your products are inexpensive.

High Quality

Use a lot of black on your site if you want users to feel that the products you sell are high quality to justify the price.

High Tech

Use the colors blue and black if your site focuses on high technology.

Speed

Use red on your site if you want users to feel that you deliver a fast service.

Courage

Use purple and red on your site if you want to reassure users of a cause you’re fighting for.

Fear

Rarely do websites want their users to feel fear. Avoid using this color combination unless you want to scare your users.

Cultural Differences

Color associations vary greatly depending on the culture. These color associations do not account for cultural differences. They’re a guide for finding the right colors to use on your website. This does not mean that using these color associations will give you a successful website. But it does mean that there’s a strong link between colors and website qualities. You can take advantage of that by choosing colors associated to qualities you want your website to represent.