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Fundamentals of color in user interface design (UI)

Simple rules to get a professional color scheme.

Leonardo Moreno
UX Collective
6 min readMar 17, 2020

Color is a sensory impression that the eyes perceive from the light, translating in a diverse form of concepts and emotions. For artists, its correct manipulation has been of great importance, so it has been theorized in many ways and with different methods throughout history.

Painting, printing, photography, graphic design and interface design use color theory to evoke specific ideas and concepts, taking advantage of the non-verbal capacity of color as opposed to other slower forms of communication.

In interface design, color psychology is used to influence the perceptions a user may have, from reinforcing brand recognition to generating more clicks on the purchase button. Other important results, such as improved usability, can also be the result of good color mastery.

Visual representation of color editing in HSL
One of the digital languages to modify the color is the HSL format. The color may change due to its hue, saturation and lightness. These three axes give us all the colors of the digital world that are then reinterpreted in a hexadecimal number or an RGB code.

In this article I write about six considerations that I regularly use for color selection when I design an interface.

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Specific colors are linked to certain emotions, but not always. Since we are born our eyes…

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Responses (3)

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In conclusion, color is the great influencer of things

Absolutely. None the less, let’s not forget about color-blindness, as well as those with other visual challenges that might affect their perception of color within the broader design/layout.

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Great article with wonderful examples. Thank you!

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Great article

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