Statistics

Color blindness, or color impairment, affects 4-8% of males, and less than 1% of females. How these people see content on all devices, from TV, to text books. And with the internet as the number one way people research and find new services and businesses, how you use color in your website could potentially help or hinder new customers. One in twenty of your customers could be color blind.

Above is an example of what a color blind person may be seeing. Selecting Colors for a Design Project, from hotdesign.com has more about design and color theory.

Choosing great color combinations for your logo, content, and navigation on your website is high priority for 360 WEB DESIGNS. We are aware of color and eyesight issues and design accordingly. First we evaluate if your customer base is more or less likely to fall into the parameters of these sight issues. We use black, white and gray for initial comps to determine an appropriate amount of contrast. When color is added, certain color combinations are avoided.

These color combinations are the hardest for users with color issues:

• Red/Blue
• Purple/Red
• Bink/Blue

Tips on Designing for the Color Impaired

• When using color to convey information, use additional symbols to help differentiate
• Darken darker colors, and lighten the lighter colors to create contrast
• Use the color wheel to choose contrasting colors
• When in doubt, change to gray tones to confirm visibility
• Line thickness variation helps to separate like items

Check in again next week for more graphics and color in web design by Annette Frei at 360 WEB DESIGNS.