Color Color Color! Start Using It!

John — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:45:43 +0000

Don’t be shy to use color to make things pop out to your visitors, and for design, there isn’t a better way to set a mood than with color!

Colors are one of the most valuable tools a designer in any field has. They can set mood, define items or areas, make people click or buy. They are very important in whether or not visitors like the site. Some color schemes are hard to work with, and don’t give a proper feel to the sites used on. Matching up your colors properly is also something that isn’t easy, it takes a real trained eye to be able to put together proper color schemes. Alternatively, you can use online tools or websites to pick color schemes. Simply pick a color you like and run it through the tools to see color schemes that work well together. Some examples of such tools would be websites like: Color Scheme Designer, Color Wizard or one of my favorites Color Schemer.

Web designs like Ithica Bakery shown to the left, utilize color to set mood and impulse the visitor to mouse over things, and click around. They’ve accomplished one of the most important things you need in a good design just by smart use of colors, to get people interacting and using the website.

A little movement incorporated into the elements goes a long way as well as it keeps your eyes moving and makes you curious enough to check everywhere, and look at everything. Which brings you through their specials, menu, and important things they’d like you to know. Mission accomplished Ithica Bakery!

Be conscious of your color choices, what type of mood are they setting for your visitors/users?

Once you start exploring all the color options, and what those colors can do for you, your business, and your website, you can really capitalize on all their benefits. The right color really makes all the difference in the world to your conversion and page views. Play with it, do some split testing, see what color button gets clicked more. Here below are a few sites that have used color in various means to get their message across effectively.

Adopt A Yeti A great mixture of colors and artwork to put together an excellent website
Production Locations This website design is a lesson is using a dramatic color to make things pop.
Aggregift Simple and soft, this design has nailed it. Wonderful use of pastel colors to help set the mood.

District Clothing Focusing the product and bringing that life to the website design. Another great use of color (in imagery).
Mostly Serious Another simple use of color, that really works. A great contrast with the grey scale layout.
Ithaca Bakery As soon as this page loads, you’re more then happy to start mousing around (over).

Form and function, it’s so important.

John — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:24:45 +0000

A good web designs intention shouldn’t be to be a showboat, it’s not always about bells and whistles. Simplicity and ease of use will often win you over more customers then shine and shimmer.

There is millions of websites out there that have completely fallen short of their goals. Fallen short not only on earning potential or popularity, but on the basic levels of web development and design. These sites were most likely all developed with good intentions and high hopes, but now sit vacant, or deleted like nobody ever loved them. What turns these millions of websites into junk heaps? I guess it is possible that they all just suck, and the webmasters who built them all sucked, and the designers or lack of, sucked, but I don’t think so.

I think (based on observation) that many of these sites major failures was usability, simplicity and over all likability. Nobody likes to hit a website that seems decent on first load, and then spend 15 minutes trying to find the exact thing you’re after. Or something with great information and tremendous possibility, that is so hard to look at because the webmaster has a thing for black backgrounds with hot pink lettering, and Homer Simpson type web graphics. It seems people focus too much on adding more features, and more content, than perfecting the features and usability they have now.

This beautiful design is a lesson in form and function, it is the french TV5 station website, and showcases their HD Content. With some very well done video backgrounds, and overlay menus, this site is very easy to use. It DOES have a slight learning curve, but it looks so nice you are inspired to click around, which basically teaches you how to navigate the site. I do not understand french and in 45-60 seconds, I had mastered the menus and submenus.

It is a brilliant example of form and function working together. It isn’t always about adding more, it’s often about making sure that what you have, has a perfect flow to it. Make sure it’s simple enough for the average user to understand and want to use the website.

Keeping things simple will help you keep things effective. With less elements and functions, it is much easier to perfect them and get a good read on visitor interaction with them. As you see things are moving forward and working effectively and efficiently, then you will actually have a true read of what else should be added. Instead of throwing ‘crap at the wall to see what sticks’, you can tailor your efforts to what you see is needed.

Here is a few examples of beautifully designed websites, that have great usability as well.

Seesaw Studios Great, clean, yet bold, with a true focus on the photography and visual arts.
Engage Interactive Probably one of my top 3 favorites. I can’t even pencil down what I like the most about it, it just has a solid flow and feel to it.
Elevn This design is a lesson in simplicity. It’s SO CLEAN I actually had the urge to clean my entire desk of dust after looking at it, so I didn’t get it dirty.
Pirata London Very visually dramatic. This site focuses very strongly on their high quality imagery to make you want to click for hours, beautifully done.