Photo: Lindsay Brunetto / Flickr
Designer Paul Herbert has been using software to identify the dominant colours in the world's top 10 websites. The top colour? Blue!
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Paul Herbert acknowledges that with nearly 5 billion webpages online right now. his sample size is relatively small size, but he has plans to analyse more websites using the web rating service alexia.com.
So why is blue so popular?
Rumour has it that Facebook uses blue because its CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg is red/green colour blind.
But what about Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, Pandora and Google - why are they using so many shades of blue?
This Way Up's tech correspondent Peter Griffin says studies have shown that blue is a favoured colour among both men and women in most parts of the world. According to web developers, blue also conveys professionalism, authority, and it's an inviting and relaxing colour to look at (unlike, say, the colour red which elevates your heart beat and perspiration rate!)
However the trend is not so apparent when you look at the top New Zealand websites, says Griffin. TradeMe is predominantly yellow, Stuff is white, and the NZ Herald black and white. Of the big banks, although blue dominates both the ANZ and BNZ websites, others may need to review their colour palettes!
