10 Facts About Color in Design

Things to remember when creating a color scheme for your product

Color is one of the most powerful tools for attracting a user’s attention within a UI. Vibrant hues naturally draw the human eye toward interface elements. Color can also influence user perception of weight and size within an interface — warmer hues tend to seem heavier and more prominent.

Warm and cool colors.

Users make subconscious judgments about a product within 90 seconds, and up to 90% of that assessment is based on colors alone.

Color psychology. Image by vmgstudio

Approximately 8% of men and 0.5% of women are color deficient (~ 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women), making sufficient color contrast crucial consideration.

Color blindness. Image by healthdirect.gov.au

Warm colors like red and orange are more easily noticed by users in peripheral vision compared to cool tones.

Warm red and orange color palette.

Blue is one of the most popular preferred colors across cultures, genders, and age groups for web interfaces and software. On average, users tend to view objects and websites with a blue-based color scheme as more trustworthy and secure.

Color preferences for women and men. Image by vmgstudios

Blue color scheme.

Color can impact a user’s ability to quickly comprehend information, with warm colors promoting better understanding of written content.

Warm colors stimulate mental activity. Image by shiftelearning

Vibrant accent colors help guide a user’s eye toward desired actions within an interface more effectively than muted colors. Vibrant, saturated colors like red and orange can increase feelings of urgency in users, potentially encouraging faster actions or purchases.

Desaturated, muted colors are less stimulating for users, promoting a calmer viewing experience well-suited for reading or focused work.

Color scheme created from desaturated, muted colors.

People process visuals before reading text content, making strategic color choices essential for instant comprehension.

Visual content is brain-friendly. Image by https://blog.squarelovin.com/user-generated-content/the-importance-of-visual-content/

The meaning of colors can differ across cultures, so localized color associations must be accounted for in global product design.

International color symbolism. Image by https://rapidnotes.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/international-color-symbolism-chart.png

While trends influence color preferences, users respond best to simple and consistent UI color schemes:

• Too many bright, vivid accent colors competing for attention in a UI can create confusion, stress, and reduced comprehension for users.
• Consistently used color cues help train users’ memories for functional elements like calls-to-action over repeated application usage.

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