UX TRIGGERS
UX Triggers is a data-driven colour psychology and
market sentiment platform. It enables any premium
member ($5/month) to upload an image or, in some
cases, dynamically snapshot a public website and
generate an in-depth colour psychology report.
Each report breaks down colour usage percentages,
dominant colour group, colour temperatures, colour
schemes used in the composition, outlines common
psychological associations with the top five colours
and also enables you to overlay the golden ratio (rule of
thirds) on the image.
The higher-level accounts also provide audience
acceptance ratings for gender and age along with
sentiment ratings for quality, cheapness, trust, reliability
and loneliness among others. It’s a great way to quickly
and inexpensively test designs or perform a competitive
analysis to understand how certain audiences may
perceive the design.
This has been a passion project of mine for nearly
a decade. Earlier this year my team at Candorem soft
launched the service and opened it up to the public.
We’ve used a version of this internally for client projects
for years. My motivation for compiling the research
and creating the algorithms that drive the platform
was focused on improving the communication between
marketing, design and decision makers at larger
organisations. Data is necessary in business decisions to
obtain buy-in but analytics or market research for design
is expensive and takes time.
I wanted to build a platform that removed the friction
point of cost, time and experience to open up the
information to anyone. To create an intuitive platform
that could not only spark curiosity but ongoing education.
To partner with larger organisations, universities and
investors to make the design process more accessible
and quantitative.meeting the expectation of an audience
will prevent their brain from firing off
a warning signal that something isn’t
quite right. Buying a few extra seconds to
solidify sentiment toward your brand is
highly valuable.The financial power of a
single colour
Did you know that 84.7 per cent of
a customer’s purchasing decision is
influenced by colour usage? Selecting the
right colour can have a large impact in
revenue and conversions.
When Microsoft was designing what
would eventually become Bing, its design
team explored a large variation of colours
to represent links. In 2010, Bing’s userexperience manager Paul Ray gave a
presentation at MIX10, a long-gone
Microsoft conference. He discussed the
level of multivariate testing done on
the factors of colours and typography- among others – and the impact they
had on revenue, return rate, time to first
click and more. Microsoft’s testing was so
granular that it included multiple shades
of blue for the link colour. It found that
a specific colour blue (#0044CC) drove
an estimated $80m to $100m dollars a
year more than the lighter blue that was
originally used.
This shade of blue is special. It
goes beyond the colour psychology
101 understanding of blue being
a representation of trust. What’s
fascinating is that this particular
shade of blue uses the golden ratio
mathematically. The golden ratio –
closely tied to the Fibonacci sequence – is
best known as the rule of thirds. It’s used
in photography to frame a composition
by dividing the image into three equal
vertical rectangles and three equal
horizontal rectangles. This is something
designers do innately as our brains
are conditioned to perceive value in
compositions that align to that ratio.
So how does this golden rule of thirds
factor into a website Hex code for Bing’s
blue? Hold on. We’re almost there.
Hex codes represent the red, green
and blue markers of a pixel. The first two
numbers of a hex code determine the
value of red, the second two the green,
and the final two blue. Bing’s blue is
#0044CC. Converting that to a standard
RGB colour spectrum results in: Red: 0,
Green: 68, Blue: 204. Still with me? What
do you get when you divide the blue value
by the green? Exactly three. Paul Ray’s
presentation defined Bing’s shade of blue
as a perfect mathematical blue.
Designing with context
It’s important to note that the perfect
blue doesn’t increase conversions by
itself, much in the way that having atheir decision making when supporting a
brand (https://netm.ag/2VbA0TQ).
If blue represents trust in 34 per cent
of that (1.19 billion) audience, that’s
a large segment of people over white
(735 million) or green (385 million).
Percentages on a graph can be misleading
until you apply the context of what they
really represent.
Building trust with the colour blue is
often used with businesses that carry out
transactions using personal or financial
information. It’s why you see banks and
social media rely on blue as a primary
colour in their branding. Leveraging
small subconscious triggers, like using
blue in branding, can help new customers
connect quickly. It’s not magic but
Use colour to shape UX