mclarke1987
07 May 2009, 06:57 AM
When it comes to designing a website, theirs is one aspect that needs a lot of consideration and surprisingly it will have a large effect on the sites success; this is the websites colour scheme. Theirs a lot that needs to be considered when coming up with it & it will largely depend on your audience.
If your target audience is Teenage Boys, you don’t want your site to be bring pink. This may seem sexist but regardless it’s still fairly common that boys don’t like pink and they will tend to be picked on or wound up by their friends, and this puts the user in a position, do they want to use the site that gets them picked on or opt for one that has no repercussions. Unfortunately, the website is unlikely to win for the masses.
Picking the colour scheme isn’t only gender based, its age based as well. The younger the audience the more bright & vibrant the site should be, young children love bright colours like yellow & orange as they give it that extra appeal & make it fun. Whereas elderly people (in general) prefer quite plain formats with subtle colours. This may seem obvious but its surprising how overlooked it is.
Another aspect is the websites theme or content, this will commonly determine the colour scheme in general. If your website is about Gardening your likely to go towards green, if it’s about Space its more likely heading in a darker black direction. This isn’t a definitive decision but its generally the colour you would think of when discussing each topic.
So your colour scheme, did you decide to go for blue? red? green? well your not done. You don’t just pick 1 colour and call it a day, for a very nice flowing website the colours need to compliment each other. Imagine you are decorating your living room, you will want to pick colors that go well together; your couch tends to blend in. This is exactly the same as designing your website, everything is supposed to compliment each other & blend well.
But if everything blends, I won’t stand out? That’s a big misconception, just because your site should blend nicely doesn’t mean you can’t draw attention to items on the page using contrasting colours that compliment and blend in. Remember, users are more compliant to websites that are pleasing to look at. If something sticks out too much they’ll get annoyed & opt to just not load the page.
I hope this article has helped you or at least provided some insight into the mechanics of selecting your colour scheme.
If your target audience is Teenage Boys, you don’t want your site to be bring pink. This may seem sexist but regardless it’s still fairly common that boys don’t like pink and they will tend to be picked on or wound up by their friends, and this puts the user in a position, do they want to use the site that gets them picked on or opt for one that has no repercussions. Unfortunately, the website is unlikely to win for the masses.
Picking the colour scheme isn’t only gender based, its age based as well. The younger the audience the more bright & vibrant the site should be, young children love bright colours like yellow & orange as they give it that extra appeal & make it fun. Whereas elderly people (in general) prefer quite plain formats with subtle colours. This may seem obvious but its surprising how overlooked it is.
Another aspect is the websites theme or content, this will commonly determine the colour scheme in general. If your website is about Gardening your likely to go towards green, if it’s about Space its more likely heading in a darker black direction. This isn’t a definitive decision but its generally the colour you would think of when discussing each topic.
So your colour scheme, did you decide to go for blue? red? green? well your not done. You don’t just pick 1 colour and call it a day, for a very nice flowing website the colours need to compliment each other. Imagine you are decorating your living room, you will want to pick colors that go well together; your couch tends to blend in. This is exactly the same as designing your website, everything is supposed to compliment each other & blend well.
But if everything blends, I won’t stand out? That’s a big misconception, just because your site should blend nicely doesn’t mean you can’t draw attention to items on the page using contrasting colours that compliment and blend in. Remember, users are more compliant to websites that are pleasing to look at. If something sticks out too much they’ll get annoyed & opt to just not load the page.
I hope this article has helped you or at least provided some insight into the mechanics of selecting your colour scheme.