Knowing a bit about colour psychology & symbolism is key to knowing which colours affect people in certain ways. colour perception is linked strongly to feelings & emotions for instance happiness, sadness & passion.
Colours can also be used to emphasise contrast & emphasise bits of a webpage that you might want the user to interact with for instance a promotion box or a buy now button.
Here's a listing of popular colours & what they make people feel like.
White is a minimalist colour. linked to simplicity, purity and cleanliness, it can be used to draw attention to images.
Yellow is associated with comfort, liveliness, energy and happiness. it is a vibrant colour that can be used to highlight specific areas on a webpage.
The colour red can conjure up feelings of passionate, courage and strength. it is a strong colour and if used in small doses, it's good for highlighting issues.
Associated with feelings of cold, royalty, peace and air, blue is the best-used colour for corporate websites. It creates the opposite reaction to red.
Green represents nature, environment, peace and luck. Green is a great colour to use for a calming effect.
Representative of joy, happiness, warning and energy, yellow has a similar effect to red, although it is not as well known. it can be used to highlight areas of a site. However, if it's used too much, it can be an overpowering colour.
Evoking feelings of style, modernism, fashion and sophistication, grey is commonly used on areas that cover fashion, design and technology.
Purple is a blend of blue and red. it has the highlights of red, although it has more bold properties than blue. It conjures up thoughts of royalty, religion and luxury. However, it is not a frequently used colour in designing for the internet.
Brown, particularly the the lighter end of the spectrum can be very soothing. Beige is also a preferred colour in designing websites because it provides an earthy and relaxed feel. it might also mean tradition, poverty and mother earth.
Grey can be linked to sophistication, innovation and the future. The paler side is similar to white in that it is a excellent colour to use on the background of a website to make a sense of space and modernism.
Colour's role is not just to make a site look good, it can encourage feelings and emotions from the browsing. picking colours that annoy the end user can have damaging effects on your web site, while cleverly choosing can mean that the web site lives up to the user's expectations.
