Web Designing: Color It Right

Web Designing: Color It RightColor choices for your web design is, in a way, choosing notwhat color you feel like but choosing what's appropriate, applicableand interesting for your potential users/audiences. You don't want yourusers feeling pathetic of your web site's color choices and patterns,do you?

Planning and organizing your color usage as you goabout designing your web sites should not be overlooked. Don't just goabout it with a trial-and-error attitude. Here are some of the bestpractices with regards to applying color in web design. Read this andget a head-start in capturing the eyes (if not yet their hearts andminds) of your prospective users!

Regarding the Use of Color andPattern. Make it a point that your color choices are flexible enoughthat they can be easily replaced depending on your user's browsersettings and assistive technology. It is good to establish a strongcontrast between the background color and the text color, however, lestyou intentionally want your users to get dizzy, don't use patterned ortextured backgrounds behind the texts. Solid and plain text backgroundsare well and good. On-screen patterns need to be put in the center.

Donot rely heavily on color connotations in guiding your users aboutimportant information. Color coding as an additional way to identifydifferent elements and site navigation can be fun and amusing. Butavoid using too many different colors simultaneously. Be consistent andhave limitations in the number of colorsyou're your color coding.

RegardingChoices in Color. The safest, more legible and professional - lookingcombination is black text on a white background. For maximum visibilityaccording to average human eye's capabilities - red and green turns outgood when in center of the screen; black, white, yellow and blue arevery useful on periphery. If your intent is to identify two groups ofcontent, do not use red and green combination, always consider that themost common color blindness is that of red/green blindness. Thisprecaution also applies with the blue and yellow combination. Keep inmind that 1 - 2% of men have blue-yellow color blindness.

Indrawing fully sighted user's attention, red and other vivid colors mayserve for your purpose. Other brighter colors are also very good forscreen based interface that will be viewed for a long period. Thesecolors are also applicable for older users. When you want the colors tobe distinct from each other, darker shades of blue, red and purple andpaler shades of green, yellow and orange are good choices.

Usethe colors to say something about your Website or company. Brightercolors like yellow as a background color can be used to highlight lowprices and bargains. Colors that are good for businesses are beige,blue, burgundy and dark green against a white or very light background.Do not make it a habit of using grey texts, greyscales for importantdiagrams. It is also not healthy to user different shades of bluesimultaneously. Do not make your design look amateur by usingflourescent type colors to highlight something.

In pairingcolors together, be sure to consult the color wheel chart first.Combining two colors from the opposite ends of the color chart and highchroma colors may result to user's headaches rather than theirappreciation.

Regarding Different Viewing Environments. Whenyou're in low light viewing conditions, use light text, thin lines, andsmall shapes in white yellow or red. Have a medium-dark background likeblue, green, red or grey. Prepare lower chroma for video displays, too.If you're workinhg in bright conditions, then apply dark text, thinlines and small shapes in blue or black. White and pale yellow,magenta, green or blue are preferable backgrounds.

These areguidelines based in practical experiences.Still, you must get wind ofyour users' reactions and comments for it is the ultimate test. Ifthese guidelines appear to be inapplicable already.then it's time tofind other information or learn from your very own experiences and actupon it.

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