Choosing a Web Color Scheme that Appeals to Men

One of the most important design elements of your site, possibly the most important element, is your color scheme. Creating an effective web color scheme that is tailored to your audience can be quite challenging. Most designers aren't aware that men and women have some fundamentally different color preferences. For instance, given a choice between blue and red, men tend to prefer blue while women prefer red. A web color scheme designed to maximize gender preferences can make your web site more attractive to male viewers.

One important thing to remember when designing a web color scheme for men is that as many as 1 out of 12 men may have color deficient vision. If your web site is specifically aimed at men, verifying that your web color scheme is clear and easy to see even for colorblind or color deficient visitors is a must. There are software packages that include filters to simulate color deficient vision and several web based tools, as well.

Developing a web color scheme for men can seem challenging. Start by looking at merchandise marketed toward men in stores and catalogs. Look at the colors used in the packaging. You should be able to start developing ideas for color palettes that men will find visually appealing based on that research. Look at popular men's websites and pay attention to the colors they use.

Men prefer certain colors and combinations over others. For instance, men are far more likely to have brown as a favorite color than women. Brown is also associated with trustworthiness and simplicity. When planning your website color scheme, keep in mind that men are generally less color aware than women. There is a certain amount of truth in jokes about men being unable to tell mauve from chartreuse. Men do prefer bright colors and contrast.

A health and fitness site, Menshealth.com, is a good example of contrast and man-friendly colors. The overall website color scheme is white, black, and grays with desaturated blue for links and titles. Deep red is used for drawing the viewer's attention, but sparingly. There is contrast between both the darker blacks and grays and the white background. There is also a contrasting color relationship between the blue and red. Overall, Menshealth.com does a good job of creating a website color scheme with high visual appeal for men.

When designing for a male audience, a website color scheme built with gender preferences in mind can help make your site more successful. One advantage to designing a site with a particular subset of the web audience in mind is that you have more freedom in designing a web color scheme that will appeal to your viewers. By understanding what your male visitors find most visually appealing and incorporating those colors in your design, you can maximize your advantage.