Articles by Brian Cugelman
The Psychology of Color and Emotional DesignColor plays an important role in emotional design by impacting visitor emotions and behavior. There are three dimensions of emotion - arousal, pleasure and control - and colors have different associations with each dimension. For example, red and yellow induce arousal while blue induces pleasure. Understanding these color psychology principles can help designers target the four motivational quadrants: optimistic emotions to motivate through rewards, pessimistic emotions to motivate through fear, insecure emotions to motivate through threat avoidance, and secure emotions to build long-term loyalty. However, color associations are complex and depend on cultural context, so testing color choices on the target audience is recommended.