The same colour scheme. Slack’s brand
style became a template for everyone
else. No one stood out any more. Not
because the product was the same but
because the overall collective design
experience was the same. That works well
for organisations looking to establish
themselves but it’s counterproductive
for industry leaders because these are
two different business models with two
different use cases.
You m ay b e ask i ng: how do busi ness
goals relate to colour usage and design
decisions? Did you know that the dining
areas of fast food restaurants were
traditionally painted in bright colours,
like red and yellow, because it createda sense of action or
unrest in patrons?
Fast food generates
revenue from being fast
and convenient. If patrons
take their time while eating,
it impedes the table turnover
and slows the amount of product the
restaurant can sell in a day. They were
focused on the potential revenue and not
the customer experience.
This trend has begun to shift in the
last few years. They’ve started using
neutral colours, natural design elements
like wood and softer lighting. It’s less
abrasive and more comforting. Market
expectation has dictated that families
want to sit down and enjoy a meal, even
if done on a budget and relatively quickly.
Working with your customer is necessary
for long-term success.
Influencing behaviour should be done
with restraint and care. It’s not always
about driving customers into a sales
funnel. Sometimes the most proactive
design decision is slowing down.subconsciously. It just so happens that
we can define that with some maths
after the fact. It’s like design science.
Just because we can add comprehension
to something that exists with maths
doesn’t mean that it exists purely because
someone used maths to make it that
way. Maths is a language and it’s often
overlooked in design or colour theory
because some designers can innately
make those connections.
Influencing customers
with colour and texture
It’s important to understand the purpose
of design before doing any actual design
work. Strange, right? You need to ask
questions like: how does it relate to the
business goals? How does it relate to the
customer’s expectations?
From a website perspective, colour
choice won’t necessarily slow down a
visitor and encourage them to spend
more time on the page. That’s more of
a user experience, product value and
market messaging topic. What colour
can do is help establish your place in the
ecosystem. Last year Slack redesigned
its website and featured wonderfully
textured illustrations and thoughtful
colour usage. It helped it stand out in
a sea of overly corporate-style SaaS
websites vying for attention. The result
was professional yet playful, which spoke
to its core market.
But then everyone copied it. The same
font style. The same illustration style.
“As with user
experience, colour
theory is best
understood as a
perspective of
context”
Above left Bing’s three top
colours are white, grey and blue.
The top two are neutral, meaning
anything blue pulls the user’s
primary attention toward it
Above right The testing
done by Microsoft for Bing
is a masterclass in colour
psychologyUse colour to shape UX