Impact Of Color

How much impact does the color of a website really have?

I can spend days developing an entire web solution for a client, and through this process, colors have a tendency change. Certain elements require stronger impact, the client doesn’t like the background (which means you need to change everything), or I am just not happy with the color choices I made in the beginning. But, what is the real impact of the color of a website?

Currently, degreego.com is going through a transformation. The client isn’t happy with the color choices for the home page and wants something different. It isn’t that the colors don’t work, or that they are unreadable, it’s that he thinks that if the color of the website is changed, there will be an increase in performance.

Performance? I could see where you can get an increase in website performance when you change the colors to increase the website functionality, or increase emphasis of conversion elements. But where is it that red is a stronger performer than green?

Does brown improve performance?

I have seen studies on the impact of color on a button selection (all of which say that color doesn’t matter, so long as you make it stand out). So what would make the color of a website that important that it can influence conversion rates?

I can see a general logic to the idea of website color. If you build a website for a kid that is about fun and exciting toys, an all black motif might not be the best choice. You could come up with a plethora of examples like this one to strengthen the argument that color has an impact on the success of a website, and I wouldn’t disagree with you.

Will gray convert more?

Where I do challenge my client is when the specific shade of green is hindering website performance.If I increased the saturation of the green bar at the top, we will see a marked increase in conversions — really?