• Natural Colors: Natural colors can provide comfort and familiarity for users. They can also be used to underscore the theme of your user interface. For example, if you are designing a travel website that has pages that profile different destinations, you can use natural colors that users will associate with each place: Greens for Ireland, browns for Arizona or the Grand Canyon, etc. Using these color palettes in tandem with images and written content will engage your users and leave your website more memorable.
• Unnatural Colors: Using bold and bright colors is also a good strategy for distinguishing your user interface from the rest, but be judicious about it. Too much bold can turn users off or detract their attention from important content. Bold colors are best used when you are trying to shock users or grab their attention. For example, if you are designing a new website you may want to have the “breaking news” section in a neon color. Or you may be creating an avant garde art website that uses all vibrant colors because you know that your users will generally be people who are interested in being challenged aesthetically. But be careful. Unlike natural colors, unnatural colors can affect your user interface as dramatically as their hues—for good and bad. So tread the unnatural color spectrum carefully.
Understanding how and why to use natural or unnatural colors is an important part of designing a successful user interface. Colors enable you to craft a pleasant experience and envelope users in your interface’s ambrosial essence—design is, after all, an art form.
