Color, psychology and design
Is product design only about how humans interacts with it?
Color is a beautiful thing that creates different emotions in humans. We see things and differentiate similar objects with the use of color. We feel colors as an object that creates different emotions when seen. Colors produced in the visual system of the human brain. In real life, the colors do not exist. We create colors using our brains, which means colors stay subjective in nature and, not objective.
In design, the color act as a key function that grabs the attention of the user. Color is the easiest aspect to remember when come to encountering new things for the users.The colors of the design always make connection with branding of the product. The product designers use color as a way to communicate what the product is about. Most of the time user’s purchase ideas largely depends on color. There are some facts that quite important when come to color psychology.
Fact 01 : Color preferences go along with the gender difference
As for the findings by Joe Hallock, it says that there is a significant difference between the preference between genders when coming to color selection. The study was done for most favorable and least favorable colors and there was a significant favor for the blue color of both men and women and the orange color was the most disliked color by both men and women. In this study, it was found that men preferred Bold colors and women preferred soft colors.
These details of findings make you understand when coming to product design why designers tend to use the blue color as much as they can in their applications and use less orange color. But it is always good to use colors that would not give support just to the likability of the users but improve the quality and the behavior of the users.
Fact 02 : The use of color depends on product or service
When coming to application design most of the people look into color before making the purchase. For an example, G-shock wrist watches are really famous for their hard use and the durability. When the users go to the G-shock website they feel that exact feeling of trust towards what the wristwatch stands out to be.
The color brings up the personality of a user when come to use the applications. Here you can see that G-shock is using bold colors that would easily grab the attention of the people who like to ware cool things instead of being extremely professional.
Fact 03 : Color makes the product recognizable
The product design is not just about being understandable but also discoverable. Our brains always like to focus on brands that are immediately recognizable. In order to create the product look engaging and recognizable, you have to use the colors properly that align with your business ideas, personality, emotion and differs from your competitors. Many studies have shown that color is a key fact when come to deal with direct competitors. The use of color is really common in the food and restaurant industry. where designers use the appearance of the product heavily based on unique colors. If we take Mcdonalds, KFC, Starbucks and other famous dine in places who have a number of branches oversees focus heavily on their unique colors and designs.
Important thing is to understand and focus on the customer reaction towards the colors rather than focusing the colors itself. Your color should achieve the goal of what you are trying to give to the customers.
How colors impact the design?
There are many articles that you may able to find how the colors impact on design. In my study, i have found following examples to show how the color physiology has impacted the design.
Blue
Blue is one of the most commonly used colors when coming to product design. The blue color is considered to give emotions such as trust, safe and relaxation.
Blue has different color shades into it that create a different set of emotions with it. The light blue color creates the emotions such as calm and makes the user feels refreshed. The blue color is also associated with happiness. Normally the clear blue sky gives that feeling of happiness and friendliness towards the user. By using the fact of being friendliness the trust is created towards the user.
Pink
The pink color is a color which is related to candy and sugary items. Most of the time it is called a “Girl’s color” by many people. The color pink is not as feminine as you think. It is a color of playfulness and Joy.
Black
Black is one of the most desired colors in the spectrum. The black color represents power and formality. The black color is considered to be the strongest color of the spectrum. Black fonts have been there from the black and white age until the electronic age due to its ability to create a proper emotion of power over other colors.
People often use the word “Everything is cool with black” since it bring power with the color.
Red
Red is a color that gives us the sense of importance and notifies to us about a danger as well. Red color often associates in design in places where the user should pay special attention. For example, in traffic lights, we show the color red as an indication to stop crossing or to stop the vehicle moving forward. At the same time, the color red is taken as a symbol of love and passion. But most of the time red is used in places where the user needs immediate attention.
Green
Green color for obvious reasons, humans find it a color that is connected to the environment, trees and plants. Most of the time organizations that sell organic food and beverages use the green color to their application. Since this color is so natural to our eyes it grabs attention when properly used.
We always consider color has everything to do with the branding but not with the application user’s emotion. But we can clearly understand that we can use colors to trigger different emotions and use this to help gain the upper hand in direct competition as well. The knowledge in color psychology to understand the misconceptions regarding colors such as
- There are ugly colors and there are beautiful colors
- Colors Are Naturally Organised Along a Color Circle
- Humans See Color
- Color Preferences are Strictly Personal
It also helps the designers to understand that there is no universal color that is called the best color to be used in the design. We should always focus on who we are designing for and get their ideas and feedback in the early stage of the design process to create a design that is more supportive to give a better user experience.
