Using Saturated Colors on Your Utility Website

“Using Saturated Colors” and why reducing brightness and saturation may be necessary in some cases.

You know the saying, “Too much of a good thing?” Well, that applies to color saturation in web design.

What does color saturation even mean? Color consists mainly of three essential parts: hue, value, and saturation. Our main focus today is on saturation, which refers to a color’s intensity. If you increase the saturation of the color by adding light, the color becomes more intense making the color appear vibrant. If you decrease it by adding dark, the color becomes muted and seems washed out.

Applying saturated colors in web design can be remarkably effective, but it is very dependent on how you use them. Saturated colors can make excellent accent colors. Adding pops of color here and there can help capture your site visitor’s attention while scrolling through your website, either by informative text, shapes, or even as an interactive button.

However, there are times when you don’t want to use saturated colors. An important example of this is in the design of your backgrounds. If you have a large, vibrant background of intense color screaming at you with text and tons of buttons on top, your eyes aren’t going to to be pleased. Your eyes need an anchor of rest. That is why a muted background works best. Your eyes don’t want to dart, but instead feel relaxed enough to absorb the content.

One last important thing to always keep in mind as you’re designing with color is compliancy. Color not only influences the aesthetics of a design, but it also affects its usability. If you have a bright saturated background with superimposed white text, it’s likely not compliant, meaning a site visitor with an eye impairment won’t be able to see the contrasting colors. You don’t have to sacrifice aesthetics for compliance, just make sure to check color contrast as you go. A good way to check your colors is to use a color contrast website.

In conclusion, some key takeaways from your trusted web design experts:

• Saturation can be a good thing, but make sure the saturation levels and compliancy are optimized.
• If your eyes are screaming, it’s a guarantee your site visitor’s will be too.

Now that’s creative problem-solving at its best!