The Psychology of Color & Website Creation For Professional Designers

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Color is probably the most powerful part of design. It is no secret that the colors we see every day have a terrific impact on our mood and behavior. Professional web and graphic designers know this and make the most out if this phenomenon. Well informed customers know about this impact, too, however, they are still sometimes subconsciously being seduced into making purchasing new products, clicking or switching brands.

Colors are important to us. Just think of how many hours we spend shopping for the perfect color to paint a room, finding shoes, dresses and accessories of the right color. While we might not fully understand the mechanism of how the right/wrong color impacts us psychologically, it’s obvious that colors play an important part in our decision making. 

According to KISSmetrics, consumers place visual appearance and color above other factors when estimating a product (93% - visual appearance; 6% - texture; 1% - sound/smell). What’s more, 85% of shoppers place color motifs as the primary reason for why they choose a particular brand or product. These compelling numbers may be a rude awakening to many marketers who may not be aware to what extent colors are actually affecting their conversion rates.

Am I missing out on a simple way to increase my sales? If this question keeps you up at night, analyze your brand colors taking into account recent researches in color psychology.

We’re lucky to live in the world where each color has the unique ability to attract specific types of buyers, and there are no black-and-white (ha-ha) solutions. Otherwise, the entire Internet, all shopping malls and billboards would be of the same color. Market research indicates the following links between shopper types, colors and venues:

This group is easily attracted with red, orange, black and royal blue colors. These colors work best for fast food restaurants, outlet malls and clearance sales. In other words, they are the perfect fit for products and services we use on a daily basis that aren’t associated with risk.

Traditional buyers are most likely to be influenced with purple, sky blue and rose motifs found in clothing stores’ interiors.

When it comes to online shopping, it’s not just about colors. Usability, overall design, calls-to-action are equally important. It was estimated that companies which use such ‘power’ words like ‘guaranteed’, ‘sale’ or ‘free’ influence positively on making the purchase decision. Take a look at the landing page of Webydo, the leading professional online design platform - their vivid, blue button contains the power word (FREE) that has prompted over 83,000 users to sign up to the platform over the past year and create websites for their clients.

Professional designers rely on the ability of colors, words and actions to evoke emotions when they are creating websites. While well thought-out, customer-oriented campaigns using the right colors can help skyrocket conversions overnight, poor aesthetics coupled with long load time and complex navigation can result in a huge economic loss even if your brand’s color palette is just perfect.

- This article is presented by Webydo’s community of professional designers.