Comments on: What difference does colour make?

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:52:30 +0000

Thanks Paul. It wasn’t a usability test though. That’s something very different.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:59:13 +0000

Once again a very good example of usability tests, which prove that one can increase with little change the conversion.

By: Stefan Asemota

Stefan Asemota — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:36:14 +0000

just ran into this: Testing different button colour combinations to improve Click-Thru-Rate – http://bit.ly/2dcrPH via @DanJHarrison

By: AtiKuSDesign

AtiKuSDesign — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:53:02 +0000

I really love simple tests like this. I just shows that with a little extra user consideration, a websites conversions can be improved incredibly.

Thanks very much for sharing

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:09:50 +0000

Hi Stefan, yes of course you should consider people with colour blindness, but this doesn’t mean not trying to use colour effectively. It means not using colour alone.

By: Stefan Asemota

Stefan Asemota — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:19:17 +0000

@jotaefeoliveira asked me on Twitter is about considering users with contrast & color blindness – A good question – The colour would mean nothing to them. http://bit.ly/4Td5Z #a11y @dav_hamill No Access = No Success

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:35:42 +0000

Hi Maarten, I hear a lot of discussion about the meaning of colour in different cultures. I’m finding it really difficult to accept however, that someone wouldn’t click a button because of its colour.

By: Maarten van Heiningen

Maarten van Heiningen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:20:45 +0000

David,

Nice subject for a test. I want to include a new perspective which hasn’t been pointed out so far. Isn’t there a cultural difference in regard to the colours used. In every culture a colour can mean something else. For example black as a corperate colour in the US is fairly accepted as for in the Netherlands (light)blue is more of a trusted business colour (example KLM).

By changing a button to just a colour you can loose your target audience! And then you will have a worse CTR.

So a button with a specific call to action should get the needed attention in the complete design. This design should focus on the call to action as a whole and not just a button. And don’t loose sight of your target audience. It’s a fine balance between good and wrong.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:25:34 +0000

Hi GCheeseman, thanks for your comment. I’m not claiming that this is a usability test. The whole page isn’t greyed out though is it? The purpose was to show how useful colour can be. By changing one single part of the page, an important button is a lot more prominent.

By: GCheeseman

GCheeseman — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:37:18 +0000

I think the page shown could be improved but obviously the experiment bears no resemblance to the way in which people use web pages, so i’m not sure whether the results were good or bad.

In your conclusion you have made a direct link between colour and prominence. I’d say there are many ways to increase prominence – changing the colour isn’t the only way, so the designer needs to consider other methods at their disposal; white space, size, typography, contrast etc.

Imagine if the whole page was greyed out, except the yellow buttons – your experiment would have the same results – perhaps better ?