The Web Experience: Visual, Auditory, Communication, and Interactivity
The visitor’s experience on the World Wide Web is purely visual and auditory (for now). On most websites the visual elements outdo the auditory elements. Of course there is the exception of sites that specifically target music lovers and/or musicians. But even on these sites functionality (using the site) relies entirely on visual menus, text, and graphics. If someone is browsing online at work or in the library, sound can actually cause visitors to LEAVE your site. Now let’s consider the MEANS (purpose) the of a website – communication. A website is meant to tell you about something, whether it’s a political message, a tutorial, a product, a service, about someone’s shopping experience, or even jokes and nonsense. The final element to web design is interactivity – how the visitor interacts on your site (clicking on links, images and buttons).
So there you have it: Visual, Sometimes Auditory, Communication, and Interactivity. Needless to say, visual holds a lot of weight in this equation. Text, images, color, layout, navigation and buttons are all visual elements of web design. The text and images tell you something, the layout helps organize the text and images, and the navigation and buttons help you find text and images. Color sets the mood of your website and affects the way the visitors feel.
The Importance of Color
My personal belief is that every site design should start with choosing a color. Too often color is overlooked or not thought out. The more attention the designer pays to color, the better the website design will turn out. Different values, tones, shades, tints and hue variations will change a color’s meaning. So after you’re set on a color, explore all its different variations and combinations.
Creating a color swatch can be a lot of fun.
If you’re looking for inspiration, try going to Colorjack (colorjack.com) and browsing through their huge library of schemes. If you ever have free time or feel inspired, create schemes for different hypothetical situations. Organize your color schemes by situation or business. Now you have an organized library of your own schemes. This can save you a lot of time in the future. Furthermore, you can print out the color schemes and present them to your client at the initial meeting. The sooner you have a color the better. A color scheme can be chosen before any work has been done on the website.
A Website with a Great Color Scheme
If you are not convinced that color plays a huge role in web design, here is a graphic example. The site reviewed below is Joy Project: Very Special Effects. The Joy Project is an Italian company that provides live special effects for big events, including the arrival of the Pope!
http://www.joyproject.it/en
The name of the site and the color scheme go hand in hand. The yellow and magenta are joyful colors. Take a good look at the yellow used for this website. There is a little magenta hue mixed in. This is an example of cooling down what is normally considered a warm color. It is still a yellow hue, but a little cooler. By adding magenta to the yellow the two also become more evenly matched. The gray background really allows the colors to pop on this site. The cool undertone to this site gives it a nightlife feel. The predominant use of magenta tells you that this site is advertising something fun and celebratory. Now consider how the message of this website would change drastically if the color was changed to light blue or baby pink. The site would have a lot less impact. What if the colors were changed to hot red and bright yellow? The site would indefinitely lose its classy touch.
Conclusion
No matter how great the layout, content, videos or widgets are on a site, no one will notice if the colors and tones are not properly considered. What’s the purpose of good content if there is not enough contrast between the text and background? No one can read it! What’s the purpose of a great layout if too many colors make the site look busy? Color, contrast, value, tone, shade and tint are essential to creating the right atmosphere so your visitors can truly enjoy their web experience.
