Key elements in coloring your web app / website!
Did you know how to choose colors for your portal? Well, if you are an entrepreneur then either
- you gotta have an eye for the right combo of colors
- some good money to hire a great designer to do it all for you?
or
Of course this post is another way of helping yourselves.
Also, this post has one great value to it: A layman’s opinion on choosing the right colors for your website. While my opinions flow out from my own creation YouSuggest, your ideas may differ and be worth millions too.
There are a million sites littered across the internet, but only a few appeal and leave a mark on our minds. Some create a jaw-dropping appreciation for the interface, while others, mostly crap, make us run for our lives. To find something better.
Colors have a great bearing on this ‘feeling to associate’ with a website. A brightly lit-up website might as much become an offensive site as would a dull and morose color set. Particularly if its a dynamic application. And remember, when we talk of a Web App we look at user-engagement, returning users and word of mouth etc.
So when you sit on PhotoShop sometime, and let your creative juices flow, you gotta bear the following three things in your mind. (i) voluptuous, (ii) curvaceous and (iii) simplicity while designing your website. And then think about colors.
A monitor of any type (LCD, CRT, or probably even your own shiny new quantum-computer screen) is comparable to the “day-sky”. Humans love the blue skies above, and by all means the sky is ‘back-lit’ by the sun.
It is filled with seams of blue, white and grey and occasionally, though rarely, has hues of yellow, pink or orange as well. Hey don’t look straight at the sun! Focus on the sky.
A computer screen is similar: back-lit, needs to be vast, clear and representing natural colors. (Did you not hear this before: ‘blue’ is the safest bet on a website? ). We humans are naturally comfortable with blue-blue sky or even white or grayish.
We are not used to “BLOOD RED” sky and therefore, would not want to associate with a ‘BLOOD RED’ screen for a prolonged measure of time. Not even green, yellow or pink. Whatever be the color you choose, it must represent some part or time of the sky, else your website would seem so synthetic.
Contrast is another aspect that one needs to bear in mind. No one gets to see a stark Himalayan snow peak against a crazy awesome purple background everyday. Choose your color contrast carefully and normally. A great tool to help you on this is kuler.
Hope, you found this sensible enough from art and reality point of view. Do let me know if you can educate us on this with your own valuable experience. 
Cheers, Marvin
About the author - ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....If u r not sleepy then follow me @marvindanig or write to him on arvind [at] pluggd [dot] in
Hi ..I remember when I started with http://www.meracareerguide.com , the team had huge discussion over week on colour ..it was more of altercation
, finally we stuck with shade of blue !!!!!
Marvin, let know what you think about layout and color scheming of the portal !! Your words would help us improve !!
Marvin – What color combo do you suggest for pluGgd.in
Hey Surabhi …. I went through your website. Its pretty well laid out and nice choice of colors. Except that the basic purpose of your website i.e. “answered, unanswered and so on questions” have been given back seat as compared to the flash-loop at the top header of the website. It drives away attention from the main purpose of your portal. I think you can do away with the flash and bring core at the front with higher font size.
Like that’s totally my opinion…decision is absolutely yours.
Ashish for pluggd.in I will to delve deeper into the subject, usage and engagement. The color combo right now is neat enough….Lay out is something we can play around with. But only as you say, sir?
Thanks Marvin for taking time out !!
Well Ask Question section is not the basic purpose but its one of the means. Each section is equally important – be it Live Chat or Career Option or Ask Question!! The flash I agree gets the highlight and that’s in a way good…The flash text and words if you read carefully contains Career Decision Algo which we trying to promote to be part of mainstream education !
yeah, it should be a fit of what you want…:)
Good post but quite superficial.
You may want to cover aspects like color combinations based on the message you want to deliver, perception you want to create etc. Also, colors are closely nit with feelings that relate to reliability, enthusiasm, verve, warmness, collaboration etc.
thanks Anand for your inputs. Delving into combinations deeper is gonna be like going into “vaastu-shastra”. Yeah, colors do reflect feelings … and that’s where one has to find a good fit between a scheme of colors & that of one’s business.
Hi Marvin
I kind of agree with you on the “Blue” philosophy. I had 2 sites – jobplaze.com and postandrecruit.com – both with blue as the base. While designing my 3rd site – viewjobs.com – I decided to take a break from blue and switched to RED. After a month, the RED changed to BLUE
Again, as Anand said, the post is quite basic and does not go deeper into the subject. You could have evaluated / linked colors like GREEN which is also very good. Some talk on pastel v/s solids would also have helped.
Some time back I was looking at this website http://www.the3iportal.com and found UI and colors quite attractive.
On a closer look I though found that there were hardly any colors used. But they have made sufficient use of pictures (which themselves were quite colorful) to give the look n feel. Use of images also uses one’s right brain optimally. Good way of giving one’s UI a facelift!!!