Vibrant colours benefit UI design in more ways than you might think.
Of course, decades of the colour response theory have demonstrated how important colour can be too conditioning and shaping how a user interacts with a design – red attracts the eye better than any other hue, while blue promotes a sense of coolness and calm. But UI design has its own particular quirks which require a further understanding of how colour can act upon the eye.
For example, consider readability. Monotone designs are far easier to scan and read. Consider vibrant colours for your UI, then, because they will enable the text on your website to be quickly and easily digested … and therefore will support your messaging better than a melange of pastel shades.
Monotone designs user a single colour and mix in shades and tints. The bold clarity that this use of colour represents will provide an eye-catching focus on your content. Use it to direct your user’s eyes towards key calls to action and “take homes”. A website exists to communicate something to someone – monotones are an efficient and effective way of doing this.
Of course, not all sites have quite the same goals – and UI design should shape itself around a site’s strategic aims. That’s why we’d be remiss to evangelise monotones at the expense of, well, duotones. To risk contradicting myself, duotones are a particularly good choice for UI design because, where monotones offer clarity, duotones create atmosphere.
As the name suggests, a duotone design will make use of two contrasting colours – or two shades of the same hue. Placing colours side by side enables you to elicit responses by being careful with your juxtapositions. For example, the soft contrast will seem serious and sober, while high contrast will seem a little more dynamic, even exciting. Where the monotone lets the content speak for itself, the duotone adds a language all its own.
Of course, contrast isn’t the only weapon in your colouring arsenal. Gradients – the gradual passage of one colour into another – can produce benefits from vibrant colour from the opposite of contrast.
Gradients can add a modern look to a website, offering a gentle and contemporary edge to your website which will inspire confidence but also make your site easier on the eyes. Modern gradients often use high-contrast colours and radiate their transition from various angles – not just along the vertical.
In other words, your choice isn’t just down to which colour: it’s also about how that colour is presented, and alongside which others. By making appropriate choices informed by your strategic goals, you’ll discover that vibrant colours really can benefit UI design.
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