Why Is Every App Blue? The Science Behind The Colour Of Your Website

It may seem like an arbitrary decision left to web designers, but the colours you choose to code your brand with can make a big impact on conversion. There is an entire field of psychology that revolves around colour preferences and the subsequent emotional reactions, but here are a few simple tips that can help your company use colours to your advantage.

The specific colours you choose are more important that simply for aesthetic purposed. The colours you apply to specific buttons and parts of your page can change the way a customer reacts to your brand. It takes 90 seconds for a customer to form an opinion on a product and by using specific colours you can impact that opinion. Choosing the right colours on your headers, graphics, headline type, borders, backgrounds, buttons and popups is crucial to conversion success.

The most important consideration to make is who your audience is. Bright orange, yellow and green are perfect for company that sells children’s bouncy houses but would be inappropriate for a high fashion website.

For colour, the easiest way to break down your audience is by gender. Women prefer blue, green and purple and primary colours in general, while men prefer blue, green and black colour schemes. Both genders have a general disdain to earth tones like orange and brown. These preferences can be used to inform the base colours of your website.

When considering buttons and features on your website, look at the breakdown of these commonly used colours, the feelings they evoke, and the best place to use them.

BLUE= TRUST, PEACE AND ORDER

There is a reason that many popular apps and websites use blue as their main colour (hello Facebook, Twitter, PayPal and Capital One). Blue projects subtle messages of trustworthiness and serenity, loyalty and tranquilly. Use blue to your advantage on landing pages on your website to make the customer feel comfortable and at peace right away. The only case that you should not use blue for your website, is if your business is related to food. Very few types of food are blue and the colour can send a message of distaste.

YELLOW= WARNING, ANXIETY

This colour can sometimes be associated with happiness or sunshine, but more often it is linked to warning signs (think wet floor and traffic signals). Yellow evokes a heighted sense of emotion or anxiety, so it should never be used as the main colour for the branding scheme of a website. Yellow is best to be used on features like call to action buttons where a bit of anxiety or tension will urge the user to click the button.

GREEN= ENVIRONMENT, OUTDOORS, ACTION

The word green itself is often used as a term to describe environmentally-friendly or outdoors related practices, so using this colour for any business that has to do with nature, the environment, organic products or the outdoors will produce great results. Green is also a great colour to use on Call to Action buttons that says “purchase” or “submit” because it sticks out in isolation against a simpler background. This is common practice for a reason! Besides that, green has been known to boost creativity! Use this colour wisely.

ORANGE= FUN, CONFIDENCE, URGENCY

This colour is great to encourage physical activity, competition and confidence, which is why it is often used in many sports team’s logos. The colour suggestion of activity explains why many companies use the colour for “Limited time offer” banners, as it stimulates attention. However, beware that some people can interpret orange as signifying “cheap”, which is appropriate for a promoting a sale, but not for a luxury high value website.

BLACK= LUXURY, VALUE

This is a very commonly used colour that signifies luxury, elegance, sophistication and power. Black is a classic and timeless colour that gives the impression of exclusivity and importance. Many high value companies like Louis Vuitton and Lamborghini use this colour to add intensity to their websites.

BRIGHT COLOURS= CALL TO ACTION

The brighter the colour on you call to action button, the higher conversion rate. In particular red, green, orange and yellow are the most effective, but as long as it is bright, the call to action will be more successful than if was in a darker, cooler colour. Anti-aesthetic colours tend to perform well as they are different and catch the eye against your coordinated aesthetic.

WHITE= FREEDOM, SPACIOUSNESS, BREATHEABLILITY

Though not technically a colour, white can often be neglected when considering a colour scheme for a website. The simplicity can be a powerful design feature when used a background colour. It lets your text and buttons standout and gives users a sense of freedom and peace in their experience.

The most important thing to remember when you are creating a website is to test a variety of colour combinations with your audience. Use this guide to inform your colour choices, but only through testing will you know exactly what works for you.

If you already have a website and brand that prevents your company from making dramatic changes to your colour scheme, try to at least adjust the call to action buttons. Small changes in specific places can still have big impacts on overall conversion.

Having a deliberate plan with your use of colour can have a big impact on the overall performance of your website!