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Persuasive Colors
of the Web
By Bryan Eisenberg |
Too often color is an afterthought when creating a Web site.
The final color palette affects customers and could cost
you money. Today, a quick primer on the return on investment
(ROI) of color.
Color doesn't simply look nice. It speaks
to the subconscious, evoking meanings, feelings, and moods. It
persuades or discourages,
influencing buying behavior. Different people actually have different
physiologic responses to different colors. And 46 percent determine
a site's credibility based on the visual design's overall appeal.
Evaluate
each of your pages first in grayscale, then in black and
white. Make sure the site's design and layout holds under
this manipulation. Looking at the design in full color, emotions
may take over and influence how you feel about it. Color should
enhance the site's experience. But because people perceive color
in different ways, it cannot define the experience.
See It in
Shades of Gray
Gray is a neutral color; neither subject nor object, inner nor
outer, tension nor relaxation. Gray feels as though it's
not colored, a demilitarized zone free from stimulus. Gray
communicates an element of noninvolvement or concealment.
It's a color that remains uncommitted and uninvolved.
At least
10 percent of your audience has some form of vision impairment
that makes it difficult to see a Web site as intended. There's
partial color blindness, in which some color perception is affected
(the most common is red-green). There's total color blindness
(pretty rare). And there are those who are partially blind. Even
these visitors can enjoy a grayscale design. Without grayscale,
they might not be motivated to click through your site. Ten percent
is a large number!
Color Only After Grayscale
After approving a grayscale design, choose a color that fits
the emotion of your site. Each individual color expresses
its own feeling:
Blue. This is the color of calmness, repose,
and unity, symbolically of sky and ocean. Looking at blue relaxes
the central nervous
system. Blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration rate go down,
allowing the body's regenerative systems to work on healing.
When folks are ill, the physiologic need for blue actually increases.
Blue is physiologically associated with tranquility. It's psychologically
associated with contentment, gratification, and peacefulness.
Green. Beyond it's symbolic associations with nature and growth,
green is the color of elastic tension, often associated with
the desire for improved conditions: the search for better
health, a useful life, social reform. It expresses the will
in operation, firmness, constancy, and persistence. Those
who possess or wish to possess high levels of self-esteem
respond strongly to it. Green is associated with many forms
and degrees of control.
Red. Physiologically, red makes blood pressure, pulse rates,
and respiration rates go up. It's an energy-expending color.
Red is associated with vitality, activity, desire, appetite,
and craving. Symbolically, red is blood, conquest, masculinity,
the flame of the human spirit. It's the impulse toward active
doing, sport, struggle, competition, eroticism, and enterprising
productivity. Red is impact or force of will, distinct from
green's elasticity of will. The person who favors red wants
his own activities to bring him intense experiences and full
living.
Black. Black represents the absolute boundary beyond which
life ceases. It expresses the idea of nothingness, extinction.
Black is the "no" to white's "yes." White
and black are the two extremes, the beginning and the end.
With its strong associations of renunciation, surrender,
and relinquishment, black is often seen as a negative color.
But it can emphasize and enforce the characteristics of the
color it surrounds.
Does It Fit Your Message?
Colors embody emotions. They must facilitate the message the
site sends. Make sure the Web site's persuasive objectives can
be conveyed in grayscale and the site doesn't rely on color alone
to communicate meaning.
Color can enhance the message, but should
not be the message. Know what the design should tell your visitors.
Only once the
message is articulated in design should color be allowed to improve
the message.
Every pixel and word on your Web site should be carefully
thought out. Color is too important a variable in the persuasion
process
to take lightly. Color your site persuasively.
Adapted from ClickZ.com. |
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