Color is one of the most important but least understood elements of web design today. Whether they know it or not, visitors to a site respond to colors and other visual elements on the site on a psychological level. Color affects the emotion of the audience, and emotion drives decision-making. An intrigued visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site — whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell products or services. If the colors are unsuitable, the eye will reject the site and your product may be rejected too, no matter how good it is.
A well-considered color scheme is frequently the difference between an okay web site and a great web site. It can also make a site unusable if the scheme used is too outrageous and hard on the eye.

Keep it Simple.
A color palette that uses three or fewer overall colors contributes to the clarity of a web page. The reader will be able to find information quicker on a simple site versus a complex site that may make them feel frustrated and lost.

Use White Space!
This relates to the previous point of keeping it simple. There are a lot of sites with too much information cluttering up the screen. Your audience will have trouble searching for navigation and the information they need amongst a bunch of clutter. White space balances colors, lets the design breathe and can make a large site feel less complex. If a customer is not overwhelmed, they will stay at your site longer.

Be consistent. Color each element (i.e. links, menu items, instructions etc.) the same on each page so that your audience will instinctively know where to look for information.

Know Your Audience
Designers need to know who the target audience before choosing a color scheme. Before you begin your design, you should ask yourself what colors the audience would find compelling and right for your product.

Different colors evoke different emotions in different cultures. This is important to keep in mind on the web if your site has an international audience. For example, in China red symbolizes happiness and good luck, in India it symbolizes purity and in South Africa it symbolizes mourning.

To complicate matters further, many colors have both positive and negative associations in the same culture. In North America, for example, black can symbolize death in some instances and formality in others.

Web Designers should also use different colors if their target audience is a specific gender or age. For example, bright, primary colors like red yellow and blue are great for kid’s sites, but if you are designing a site for an audience over fifty you may want to use desaturated, softer colors. Younger audiences also tolerate a black or dark background with lighter text better than an older audience.

In general terms, here are the meanings of a few basic colors:
Red Energy, strength, passion, risk, fame, love, -top, take notice
Blue Wisdom, protection, spiritual inspiration, calm, reassurance, gentleness, water, creativity,-Depth quality; large companies often use it for their logos.
Yellow Sun, intelligence, logical imagination, social energy, cooperation, sunshine, joy, happiness, intellect, energy, cheerfulness
Green Healing, monetary success, fertility, growth, personal goals, resurrection, renewal, youth, stability, freshness, nature-Plants and environmental awareness
Grey Security, reliability, intelligence, dignity, maturity, conservative, practical

Temperatures of Colors
Yes, colors have perceived temperatures! The perception of your site will be affected by your choice of warm or cool colors. Cool colors are water and sky colors like blue and purple; warm colors are on the opposite end of the color wheel: red, orange and yellow.
The temperature of a color can affect how your message is perceived. Red text for the word SALE will be perceived as more vibrant and urgent than soft purple text.

If you have a calm and reassuring message you want to get across, (i.e. for a spa) color can affect the tone and mood. For this message, soft browns or deep green would be more calming than an orange or red.

The Importance of Contrast
Contrast between colors on a web page can help draw attention to certain elements.
Contrast between text and its background is a necessity for legibility. Dark text on a white background is more igible than orange text on a red background.

Different elements on your web page (i.e. the menu and body of the page) should also contrast or they will start to blend together. Contrast helps your audience distinguish between the different points on your site and therefore helps them feel less frustrated and gives them a more enjoyable experience when they visit your site.

Color Design Links

Web development incorporates all areas of creating a Web site for the World Wide Web. This includes Web design (graphic design, XHTML, CSS, usability and semantics), programming, server administration, content management, marketing, testing and deployment. The term can also specifically be used to refer to the “back end”, that is, programming and server administration. There is usually more than one member that works on a given Web Development team, each specializing in his or her own field.

These days, almost everybody relies on the internet. May it be chatting, shopping, or even just for fun; people are very fond of browsing the net. But these people don’t have the slightest idea on how hard it is to create, develop, and maintain a website. All they know is that if they find the site easy to navigate, or if it is easy to find, then they will visit it. But if your site is boring, then it will remain unvisited and your site rank will stay to zero.

For web masters, it is very fulfilling if they see their site having many visitors and their page rank is increasing. They have to think of different styles to promote their website and of course they have to update it at least once a month so that people who visit their site will not get tired of dropping by.

Managing a website professionally seems like a forever job. And if you’re not really into it, you might give up easily. Most webmasters will tell you that it is not really easy to maintain and develop websites especially if your products or the content of your website is common. What the web master usually does is that even if your website layout and content is generic, they make it appear like its unique and one of a kind.

If you’re a professional entrepreneur, your focus is to how you will sell the products and increase your earnings. One way of advertising your products and/or your company is through managing a website. But being busy will hinder you to maintain it. With this, chances are your product and your company will not be known to many people. Don’t let this happen to you. If you are really concern with the products you have and you want to sell it to people, use the internet! You don’t need to go through all the troubles that maintaining a website has. There are lots of companies who offer services such as web design, web development, and the like. However you still need to set some criteria in choosing the best web development company for you, your products, and your company.

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