|
Web_Designing_Color_It_Right
| Web Designing: Color It Right
Color choices for your web design is, in a way, choosing not
what color you feel like but choosing what’s appropriate,
applicable and interesting for your potential users/audiences.
You don’t want your users feeling pathetic of your web site’s
color choices and patterns, do you?
Planning and organizing your color usage as you go about
designing your web sites should not be overlooked. Don’t just go
about it with a trial-and-error attitude. Here are some of the
best practices with regards to applying color in web design.
Read this and get a head-start in capturing the eyes (if not yet
their hearts and minds) of your prospective users!
Regarding the Use of Color and Pattern. Make it a point that
your color choices are flexible enough that they can be easily
replaced depending on your user’s browser settings and assistive
technology. It is good to establish a strong contrast between
the background color and the text color, however, lest you
intentionally want your users to get dizzy, don’t use patterned
or textured backgrounds behind the texts. Solid and plain text
backgrounds are well and good. On-screen patterns need to be put
in the center.
Do not rely heavily on color connotations in guiding your users
about important information. Color coding as an additional way
to identify different elements and site navigation can be fun
and amusing. But avoid using too many different colors
simultaneously. Be consistent and have limitations in the number
of colorsyou’re your color coding.
Regarding Choices in Color. The safest, more legible and
professional – looking combination is black text on a white
background. For maximum visibility according to average human
eye’s capabilities – red and green turns out good when in center
of the screen; black, white, yellow and blue are very useful on
periphery. If your intent is to identify two groups of content,
do not use red and green combination, always consider that the
most common color blindness is that of red/green blindness. This
precaution also applies with the blue and yellow combination.
Keep in mind that 1 – 2% of men have blue-yellow color
blindness.
In drawing fully sighted user’s attention, red and other vivid
colors may serve for your purpose. Other brighter colors are
also very good for screen based interface that will be viewed
for a long period. These colors are also applicable for older
users. When you want the colors to be distinct from each other,
darker shades of blue, red and purple and paler shades of green,
yellow and orange are good choices.
Use the colors to say something about your Website or company.
Brighter colors like yellow as a background color can be used to
highlight low prices 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 important diagrams. It is also not
healthy to user different shades of blue simultaneously. Do not
make your design look amateur by using flourescent type colors
to highlight something.
In pairing colors together, be sure to consult the color wheel
chart first. Combining two colors from the opposite ends of the
color chart and high chroma colors may result to user’s
headaches rather than their appreciation.
Regarding Different Viewing Environments. When you’re in low
light viewing conditions, use light text, thin lines, and small
shapes in white yellow or red. Have a medium-dark background
like blue, green, red or grey. Prepare lower chroma for video
displays, too. If you’re workinhg in bright conditions, then
apply dark text, thin lines and small shapes in blue or black.
White and pale yellow, magenta, green or blue are preferable
backgrounds.
These are guidelines based in practical experiences…Still, you
must get wind of your users’ reactions and comments for it is
the ultimate test. If these guidelines appear to be inapplicable
already…then it’s time to find other information or learn from
your very own experiences and act upon it. -30-
For comments and inquiries about the article visit
http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com
About the author:
Kay Zetkin discovered the pleasure of writing through her daily
journals as a teen-ager. Writing in it helped sort out her
thoughts, relieve her feelings and record what she observes of
the world.
For her, writing is an effective tool to express your
viewpoints... To write is already to choose, thus, writing
should be done along with a critical mind and a caring soul. She
hopes to become more professional, skilled and mature in her
craft.
|
|
| |
| |
