In all honesty, too many websites still suffer from colour combinations chosen because someone “just liked them.”
But choosing the right colour scheme for your website is about more than preference. It's about strategy, how colour influences user experience, emotion, brand identity, and even brand recognition.
Done right, your website colour scheme builds trust, strengthens messaging, and turns design into a driver of action, whether it's a sleek e-commerce website design or a clean layout for a government service following the GOV.UK Design System.
Colour isn't decoration, it's UX, branding, and psychology
The right colour palette does more than make your site look polished. It shapes emotional responses, sets mood and tone, guides behaviour, and builds trust. Colour psychology tells us users often form subconscious impressions within seconds, and colour is usually the deciding factor.
Every choice matters, from background colour to accent colors, to whether you use a monochromatic color scheme, trending colors, or push contrast with a complementary color scheme. These decisions affect everything from user engagement and trust to conversions.
Your colours also need to hold up in real-world design systems. For example, colours should pass accessibility tests via a contrast checker and follow recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). If they don’t, you risk alienating users and undermining your own user experience.
Common colour mistakes that ruin user experience
Here’s what we still see too often in modern web design:
Designing by personal taste
This is how you end up with clashing colours, random colour codes, and branding colours that have no harmony, resulting in a layout that feels like the colour wheel exploded.
Skipping accessibility checks
Even the most beautiful colour schemes fail if the contrast ratio is too low. Use a contrast checker and test relative luminosity (Rel. Luminosity by WCAG or Luminosity [0–100%]) to make sure your text is readable in all lighting and viewing conditions.
Not thinking in systems
Picking individual colours from a colour picker might seem easy, but building a cohesive colour system is far more important. That means thinking about primary colour, secondary colour, and how your colours behave together across backgrounds, text, CTA buttons, and UI elements.
Over-relying on generators
A colour scheme generator or Color Palette Generator like Adobe Color or Adobe CC can be helpful to get started, but tools can’t understand brand context or audience behaviour. Use them to explore options, not make final decisions.
The psychology of colour: what users feel
Let’s look at how different colours influence perception, keeping colour relationships and color theory basics in mind:
Red = urgency, energy, emotion
Blue (like royal blue) = calm, trust, authority
Green = balance, growth, sustainability (often seen in wellness apps)
Yellow = optimism, creativity, energy
Black or dark grey = luxury, power, boldness
Purple = creativity, spirituality, quality
Orange or dark pink = confidence, friendliness, action
These meanings shift depending on your audience and product. A fintech site using blue suggests stability. A lifestyle brand using the same colour might come across as cold or detached.
This is why even the most popular color palettes or well-styled colour themes fail if they’re out of sync with your message or your audience’s expectations.
Building a colour scheme that actually works
You don’t need to be a colour scheme designer to create a smart, consistent, and accessible colour palette for your website. You just need a structured approach. Here's how:
Start with your brand identity
Is your tone serious? Playful? Premium? Choose colours that reflect that. The RGB [hex] colour model is helpful here to get precise values that can be reused across digital assets like your website, logo creation files, and social posts.
Think about user journeys
Use colour combinations to direct attention, like a bold accent colour for CTAs, a high-contrast background colour for readability, or muted tones to improve visual appearance.
Make accessibility a priority
Test your colour combinations using a contrast checker, ensure they meet WCAG requirements, and aim to exceed the minimum contrast ratio. This is especially critical for data visualisation, form inputs, and key content in learning tools or platforms like the Hostinger Website Builder.
Use a colour wheel
Still one of the most valuable tools in art and design, the colour wheel helps you understand which colours work together based on colour harmony. Want balance? Go analogous. Want contrast? Go complementary. Want consistency? Test seasonal color palettes like autumn leaves for promotional campaigns or seasonal sales.
Test before you commit
Use colour scheme generators like Adobe Express, branding portal tools, or even Sass variables in your codebase to test and maintain consistency. Apply them to UI components, Google Fonts, and visuals across platforms and plugins, especially if you're working with GOV.UK Prototype Kit or other government design systems.
Examples of great website colour schemes
From creative communities to enterprise brands, the best websites use colour intentionally:
- A clean user interface (UI design) with soft neutrals and a bold accent colour that draws attention to conversions.
- A minimalist responsive design using high-contrast shades and muted palettes to guide the eye and improve usability.
- A brand using consistent, accessible colour rules across their site, app, and Canva templates, creating a seamless cross-platform experience.
This is what happens when colour works with your message, not against it.
Final thoughts: don’t just decorate - design
The right colour scheme for your website should make your message clearer, your site easier to use, and your brand more memorable. It should support your brand perception, enhance accessibility, and guide users toward action.
So skip the guesswork. Build your colour palette with intention, not just intuition.
Need help choosing colours that convert?
We help communications teams and brands craft colour systems grounded in UX design, colour theory, brand storytelling, and real user behaviour.
Whether you need a full website design, a quick UI audit, or help making sense of the colour harmony chaos, drop us a line - we’ve got you covered.
Let’s make your colours work harder and smarter for your brand.