Color
is important. Consider this: "...research reveals
all human beings make a subconscious judgment about a person,
environment , or item within 90 seconds of initial viewing and
that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color
alone" [The
Institute for Color Research]. We don't claim this is necessarily
a good thing, but we do believe in its validity. Colors should
be selected with care to project the desired image and appeal
to the target audience. Color selection is seldom a random endeavor.
Colors
will vary slightly. The variance of color from computer
to computer is a subject that continues to perplex clients, even
those that are seasoned users of the internet. Consider this analogy.
Even if you take the same route to work, the vehicle you ride
in can impact the experience and what you see. The landmarks remain
stationary, but from a subway train window, the driver's seat
of a luxury car or the backseat of a minivan those same landmarks
can seem slightly different. The same can be said for your computer's
browser or monitor...it gets you there but the view may be a little
different.
The
slight differences in appearance on each computer screen are part
of the variety of the internet landscape. We are often asked about
web safe colors. "Web safe" colors were a limited collection
of colors in the 1990's that were thought to display relatively
consistently regardless of the computer platform and monitor that
website visitor's were using.
Since
then a great deal has changed and the web safe palette is considered
to be obsolete. The typical computer monitor, once limited to
256 colors in the mid-90's, now can commonly display millions
of different colors thus eliminating the need for such severe
color limitations. If you hope to appeal to individuals in more
remote parts of the world possibly there will be different considerations
than if those individuals resided in the US or most of the developed
world.
Color
Usage Guidelines. We endorse several guidelines in the
selection of color to insure ease of readability:
-
General content and body text should appear in a dark color
on a light background whenever possible.
- Hyperlinks
should generally be consistently different from the body text
to easily distinguish them as links.
- Choosing
a color palette to be utilized throughout a website is often
recommended for a unified look and appeal.
ADDITIONAL
OFFSITE READING
Here
are a few insightful essays on the subject of color:
