Colour and E-Commerce

(Colour Matters Website)

A successful “store” has a simple formula. Initially, it must be accessible to everyone. It must be attractive and inviting. Once inside, the customer must be able to move comfortably through the store and find what they need. They must be able to examine the merchandise (or service) and get information about it. Finally, they must be able to successfully complete a purchase or procure a service.

Colour must function successfully on several levels simultaneously. First, on a technical level, the colours must be as accurate as the existing technology will allow. Second, once a set of colours has caught and held the visitor's attention they must succeed in conveying appropriate information. Third, colours must function competently as the primary structural element in the store’s design — the web page layout. In this capacity, colour must create appropriate spatial and navigational effects on the page and the site as a whole. Fourth, as the primary aesthetic tool, colours must create a sense of visual harmony, thus sustaining and enhancing the customers interest in the shopping experience.

Select the most appropriate colours by analyzing the store’s products or services and the target market. It is essential that colours bear some relationship — either symbolic or literal — to the product or service. Don’t try to reinvent the colour wheel by using unusual colours.

Use colour to create the most functional user-interface design. For example, use colour to direct the eye to the most important areas on the page. The web designer must identify what ideal and normal sequences might entail: what the viewer should see first, where the eye should move next, and how much time the viewer's attention should be held by each area. Keep colours to minimum. "Signal detection" theory means that the brain is able to understand and organize information when a minimum of colours and shapes exists within the visual field. Too many colours and shapes make it impossible to focus and find anything.

Use colour harmony principles to create a pleasant visual experience. In other words, all the colours of the components — the navigation system, banners, buttons, and text — as well as the images of the merchandise (if they exist), must all work well together. Some common attribute must unify them.

In conclusion, consider this: Just as a store is constructed of solid matter, colour is the basic building material of two-dimensional images and visual experiences. In the final analysis, colour plays a pivotal role in the customer’s critical decision — to buy or not buy.