Color in Web Design

Colour Tips for Web design

• Main ingredient for legibility is contrast. You can test your legibility by converting your site to monochrome. Use strong contrast between the background color and the text color.
• If you need to show pattern, place it in the center because our eyes work harder to take in patterns on the periphary.
• Important information to the user does not reply on colour alone.
• Avoid using too many colours at the same time, it creates a confusing overall effect.
• Black text on white background is best.
• Red and green are best used in the centre of the screen and black, white, yellow and blue are best used on the periphary
• Brighter colours are better by interfaces that will be viewed for a long period of time or if designed for older users.
• If you want colours to be easily distinguished from each other, use darker shades of blue, red, and purple and paler shades of green, yellow and orange.
• Colours do not the mean the same thing to different people.
• To convey low prices use brighter colours such a yellow
• Beige, blue, burgundy, and dark green give impression of high quality, solidity and tradition.

Do Not

• Do not use red and green where you need to distinguish between them to understand the content.
• Do not use blue and yellow together when you need to distinguish between them to understand the content.
• Do not use grey text
• Do not use differnt blues simultaneously
• Do not use fluorescent colours.
• Do not pair extremes of wavelength (opposite ends of color chart) like red and blue as it induces headaches
• Do not use high chroma colours together like blue and yellow

Source: http://www.sitepoint.com/print/1126

Additional Resources

Excellent article on generating a color scheme.

Hex clock