You may not realize it, but a lot of thought goes into web design. Every single detail matters, all because of psychology. Though you don’t need a degree in psychology to build a website, it’s still important for designers to study a business’s targeted audience before creating a web design, due to elements which affect people’s psyche in certain ways. There are different elements in web design, such as color, size, and images, which work together to arouse the feelings of website viewers.
Color is one of the most apparent and important parts of a website’s design. When you first open a webpage, your view doesn’t focus on the content or layout of the site, it focuses on color. Different colors can influence our mood and decisions, and are highly associated by viewers with certain emotions and meanings. Color is important for every aspect of web design, from the background to menus and fonts, because color conveys an immediate non-verbal message about a business’s brand.
Colors are divided into two basic groups, warm colors and cool colors. Colors on the red side of the color spectrum are warm (i.e. red, orange, and yellow), while colors on the blue side are known as cool colors (i.e. blue, purple, and green). Warm colors evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and passion to anger and aggression. Cool colors induce calm and tranquil feelings, as well as feelings of sadness or inference.
Every color creates a different, immediate emotional response:
RED: love, passion, danger, warning, excitement, emotion, strength, action
ORANGE: comfort, creativity, fun, youth, enthusiasm, warmth, health
YELLOW: curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, innocence, energy, happiness, joy
GREEN: nature, health, healing, harmony, innovation, ethics, safety, renewal
BLUE: trust, success, seriousness, calmness, professionalism, unity, stability, confidence
PURPLE: royalty, luxury, fantasy, spirituality, magic, calm, femininity, edge
PINK: softness, sweetness, innocence, tenderness, femininity, brilliance
WHITE: innocence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, elegance, minimalism, clarity
GREY: neutrality, indifference, reservation, elegance, professionalism, moody
BROWN: earth, nature, primitive, relaxation, endurance, warmth, wholesomeness, stability
BLACK: seriousness, mystery, darkness, secrecy, gloom, authority, power, formality
Now that you know what colors mean and what feelings they evoke, visit your favorite websites and make a simple analysis of the colors scheme that are used. You’ll notice sites of companies like food corporations utilize warm tones in their site to evoke strong emotions and feelings like hunger, while sites of companies providing high-end or technological services incorporate cool tones to give off an aura of intelligence, modernism, and trust.
