Blog Talk 1 - Color

Within the area of web usability, one of the important part sure will be color matching.

First lets see an example here.

Hayden Video Weddings

If you really need some wedding service, I am sure you will not trust this one… Because if you dont look at the details, you will never know this is a wedding service… Even you want to see the text is very difficult. So sometimes color matching is even more important than the web content.

Lets see another example.

Beyond the Bones (Bad Example)

Actually this is a web done by an author who want to show the bad example only. Again, it is hard to see the text and it is too bright to look at it.

This one is the original document.

Beyond the Bones (Original)

You can see the great difference between the pages. So color matching is really important which will you affect you whether you will stay or simply browse away.

So how can you learn the secrets of the color combinations? Here I suggest some of the great tools.

The first one is Color Schemer Studio. It is a small application which you can create some color schemes from a single color that is chosen by you. And after you create the schemes, you can even use their tester to preview the resulting web.

If you dont want to pay for it, you can still have alternatives. Actually the company that produce Color Schemer Studio have made an online version - Color Schemer Online v2. Although the functions are not as powerful as the Studio one, it is very useful too.

Another one is a free tool - Web Color Theory. In here, you can do some drag and drop to test different color combinations. You can even test it in a web template similar as the Color Schemer Studio.

So next time when you design a web, try to use these tools to help you design the best color combos.