Color palettes for educational websites differ from those used on other websites. As we know, website color palettes can vary depending on the company brand or services offered; this unique combination is also related to color psychology.
The ideal website color palette or color combination will positively impact online users. In this context, students or general web visitors who need to access the educational website for e-learning purposes. So, in this post, you will discover why specific color combinations matter for educational websites, what are the most used color combinations, and the best practices by using examples or study cases.
Why Do Color Combinations Matter for Educational Websites?
Nowadays, many people have easy access to the world wide web to search for information and to learn. It’s especially not tricky for young people or students to study online as there are tons of educational websites on the internet that offer learning content. However, besides the provided educational content, the color combination also does matter for an educational website, and here’s why.
Affecting the Mood and Behaviour
Colors are lights that travel to the eyes in different wavelengths. It travels to the hypothalamus, the brain area in charge of our hormones and endocrine system. Color is actually energy and can have a physical effect on humans. The shorter wavelength, the stronger the actual physical effect would take place.
The electromagnetic radiation of color as light affects human mood and behavior. However, the individual’s response to mood and behavior, in a certain environment is often triggered by the color combination. It can also be understood that e-learners do not respond to just one color, but to colors in combination.
Increase Active Learning
The right color combination will help the e-learners to focus on the educational content and stay longer on the educational website with maximum convenience. These color combinations are expected to be able to improve information memory, encourage involvement, and promote active learning.
Colors Distinguish an Educational Brand
With an enormous number of educational websites on the internet, it’s pretty crucial to stay on top of the competition or at least to gain users’ attention using the brand identity color. The color combination will differentiate an educational brand from other competitors.
A study revealed that 90% of quick impressions are based just on color. Color can provide a significant advantage by providing immediate recognition, especially to new visitors or users. It definitely helps to make an online educational service stand out in the market.
Most Used Colors for Educational Websites
The educational website requires a special environment where it is conducive to learning online, yet does not overstimulate the e-learners. As a result, the colors used in educational websites are frequently minimal in number or monochromatic with a small color accent to liven up the composition.
What has been studied by color psychology experts and what we have seen on many educational websites are significantly aligned. As research has shown that the most highly favorable color by students is blue, followed by green,
Blue
The calmness or peacefulness of the blue color increases creativity and focus. This color also improves memory and mood. Therefore, you can create a tranquil interface with the blue color to prevent distraction for the learners.
The shades of blue color can be used when you need to present a difficult subject or overwhelming logical content. This is because they can help to calm the mood of online learners and make it easy to memorize the subjects or the presentation content.
Educational websites are often dominant with blue color as they reflect flexibility in the darker blue, whereas lighter blues promote reliability and help maintain focus.
Green
For the human eye, green is the most relaxing color, and can also work as a stress reliever. According to studies, being surrounded by green can improve mental health since it reminds us of being close to nature. It’s very effective to use it on an educational website where you want the learners to read your content stress-free and to feel invited to seek more.
You can use the green color when you want to feature something that can benefit or bring an advantage in the long run to your online learners. Such as motivational content or inspiring quotes to boost personal development as the color tones are also associated with growth, health, and safety.
Dark green represents determination and prosperity, and lighter green adds freshness and symbolizes optimism. Green as the dominant color on an educational website would definitely bring out positive energy
Blue and Green
Blue is frequently used with green as analogous colors to express a message of openness and informality. The tranquility of the blue and green color combination would create peaceful harmony, yet it would still bring a subtle dynamic that supports each other.
The color combination of blue and green is fairly effective when you want to offer serious web content or service, but in a fun and inviting form as you want to win learners' attention with something that will be visually less boring
There are ways to make this color combination works perfectly on an educational website, and one of them is to make sure there is enough color contrast between the blue and the green colors. One of the colors can be much softer, lighter, or darker than the other. The lighter color is best used for a section background and the darker color would do good for buttons or text links.
Best Examples of Color Combinations for Educational Websites
Academia is an educational website that provides free PDFs. It incorporates the dominant blue color and contrasts darker and lighter blue and a little grey to create the content hierarchy and composition. The website offers reliable content for students or researchers and the lighter blue color would be helpful to accomplish that. The cobalt blue, which is a darker blue, makes the CTA buttons look stand out.
Another example of a website color combination that is pretty simple to see, yet catchy and modern, is PowerSchool. This website offers cloud-based 12-K software for student and educator productivity. The primary color palette is lighter blue with a warmer color tone to contrast with cerise red as a color accent which is used for the CTA buttons and text link.
D2L offers solutions to transform teaching and learning in person or online. As a tech ecosystem service-based, this website looks fresh with the high contrast combination of green forest and black color on white background. It also includes electric green as an accent color which is quite inviting to balance with the black color that represents assurance or security.
As a website that provides many types of digital content for entertainment or knowledge, Scribd uses a minimal color combination. It incorporates elm green which brings a soothing effect to combine with dark grey on white background. These colors' composition creates a casual atmosphere and fine quality simultaneously.
Duolngo is an educational website where you learn a language in a fun way. The color accent is bright green, which is mostly used for the CTA buttons on the website to add enthusiasm and interest to the website. The dark blue gives a sense of reliability and represents knowledge. The combination of bright green and dark blue on the website promotes excitement to learn a language on reliable online learning services.
Similar to Duolingo, Toppr also uses blue and green color combinations. Toppr is an education website that provides comprehensive online learning for young students. The web content is fairly complex with much information to show. The hues are softer to help the online learner to focus on the content when visiting the website. Emerald green is used to accent the CTA buttons to balance the color composition.
Conclusion
Not just a single color, the combination of colors also have meanings and mood for an educational website. The combination of colors can be minimal with neutral colors, monochromatic with different color tones, or with big contrast for color accents. The color accent would be useful for some important web elements, such as CTA buttons or icons, hence the eLearners would be easy to find them.
Helping online students focus on the educational content with the right color combination is essential for an educational website. The next basic purpose of a good web color combination is to stimulate e-Learners with curiosity to explore more and to represent the value of an educational website with reliable content.
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Audee Mirza is a graphic designer and WordPress developer at audeemirza.com who resides in Surabaya, Indonesia. She's also the author of Graphic Identity Blog, a professional logo designer, and often creates vector illustrations for clients and marketplaces. She enjoys good typography design and all kinds of animation.
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