In the world of design, understanding the psychology of colour is a powerful tool for crafting memorable and effective customer experiences. Colour has an immense influence on human behaviour. It allows your customers to understand different situations better. It has the power to change the mood and feelings they have toward your business and products and can even change their behaviour.
In this blog post, we will go through everything you need to know to use colour to your and your customer’s advantage.
What is colour Psychology?
Colour psychology is the study of how colours influence human behaviour, emotions, and perceptions. It plays a crucial role in various fields, from marketing to interior design, and certainly in customer experience. The colours we encounter daily can evoke specific emotions, trigger memories, and even influence decision-making.
Colours have the power to set the tone, create a brand identity, and establish a connection with customers. When strategically applied, they can enhance the overall experience, making it more enjoyable and memorable.
What do Different Colors Mean?
Red:
Key Words: Bold, powerful, dynamic, passionate, warm, and energetic.
Red is associated with strong emotions, ranging from love to urgency. Brands often use red to grab attention, convey excitement, or create a sense of urgency. It stimulates the appetite, making it a popular choice for the food industry.
Blue:
Key Words: Dependable, logical, calm, serene, and trustworthy.
Blue is one of the most universally liked colours. It is often linked with trust and reliability, making it a common choice for tech companies, banks, and healthcare providers. Lighter shades convey tranquillity, while darker shades symbolise professionalism.
Yellow:
Key Words: Adventurous, energetic, cheerful, warm, and optimistic.
Yellow is the colour of sunshine and happiness. It grabs attention and promotes a positive, energetic vibe. Brands use yellow to convey friendliness and approachability. However, excessive use can lead to feelings of anxiety, so balance is key.
Orange:
Key Words: Adventure, optimism, happiness, vitality, restlessness
Orange is the autumn colour. It is associated with adventure, optimism and youth. As it is a very bold colour option, it can be overwhelming to viewers and therefore can often be either loved or hated.
Green:
Key Words: Balanced, growth-oriented, logical, soothing, nurturing, and fresh.
Green is associated with nature, health, and growth. It creates a sense of balance and is often used by brands that want to convey an eco-friendly or sustainable image. It’s a calming colour that promotes feelings of freshness and renewal.
Purple:
Key Words: Luxurious, creative, sophisticated, royal, elegant, and spiritual.
Purple has long been associated with royalty and luxury. It evokes a sense of sophistication and creativity. Brands use purple to communicate a sense of exclusivity and uniqueness.
Colour Psychology in Practice
In a study in 2006, Sing found that colour has the power to influence people’s health which is a good base to understand what colours businesses should use “It was found that different colours had varying effects on the health of the people ranging from red – energising the liver to blue creating calmness and relaxation. Next, the author focused on the application of colour in marketing. Because of its influence on human metabolism, it was found that the red colour stimulated appetite in restaurants making red a prevalent choice of colour among fast-food restaurants.”
By understanding this, it’s not surprising that McDonald’s chose red as its main colour. Along with yellow which represents happiness they created a perfect combo for making people hungry and making their business an inviting option to solve their problem.
There are many more studies done to show how different colours affect people. It’s proven that depending on people’s culture, demographics and the colour itself, your customers will take different actions.
As we mentioned above, Purple is associated with luxury and royalty. Why? Because in the past, producing purple dye required “more than 9,000 molluscs” per one gram. This made it extremely expensive, to the point that even royalty weren’t always able to afford it.
Today brands like Hallmark or Cadbury use the colour to express their excellent quality and prestige. However, the colour is now not only used to express luxury and sophistication but also the universe and galaxy as seen in Meta’s Metaverse.
Another popular colour that brands use is blue. No wonder since it’s one of the most common favourite colours in the world. Major social media platforms like, LinkedIn and Facebook both use blue, (Twitter also did before it became X). Even the tools that you use daily like Salesforce, Zoom or Cisco use this dependable colour. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of brands that use blue in their branding.
But depending on the shade it can have different associations. For example, dark, deep tones of blue are more often seen in technology and finance where they suggest reliability and confidence. While lighter tones are more often used in healthcare and beauty to make customers feel calm, relaxed and fresh.
Understandably, blue doesn’t appear in any food products because it is not naturally found in nature – therefore it has an appetite suppressant effect.
Cultural differences
However all the above can be very different in different cultures and regions. The infographic below by Informationisbeautiful.com shows how different colours are perceived in different parts of the world.
A simple colour like white in Western culture is associated with purity and truce while in Hindu it’s a symbol of death. And although this is a basic example there are other differences. Blue as we described represents trust and reliability usually in the Western regions, in Native American and South American cultures it signifies trouble.
Lessons for CX Manager
This shows that when you’re designing your CX Strategy colour can help you make the experience for your customers more memorable and enjoyable.
For example, if you have store outlets in India and the USA, you should always be aware, which colours in these regions will make your customers more likely to enjoy their store visit. If your goal is to create a space that they will feel happy in you could opt for yellow in the USA but for green in India and red in China.
If you use the correct colour in your branding and diligently ensure the consistency of it throughout the customer journey you will help your customers to go through each journey satisfied and happy. Of course, colour alone won’t bring you miracles, you need to have a good strategy in place too. But it can certainly help and if you use it wisely it will bring you the results in increased profit and a higher customer satisfaction rate.
If you would like to learn more about CX and create a successful CX strategy enrol in our Profesional Diploma in CX today.
