Color matters: color as trustworthiness cue in web sites
Alberts and van der Geest ask whether the colour scheme of a website changes how trustworthy visitors find it, and they include context because the feelings attached to colours can vary with it. Participants rated finance, legal and medical websites, seeing the same design in one of four colour schemes: red, blue, green or black. Blue was judged the most trustworthy and black the least. Colour had a statistically significant effect, but a modest one next to other influences on trust, and context had a significant but very small effect. The authors describe it as the first demonstration of a link between colour and perceived trustworthiness in websites, and suggest designers can choose a scheme with that in mind.
Alberts and van der Geest ask whether the colour scheme of a website changes how trustworthy visitors find it, and they include context because the feelings attached to colours can vary with it. Participants rated finance, legal and medical websites, seeing the same design in one of four colour schemes: red, blue, green or black. Blue was judged the most trustworthy and black the least. Colour had a statistically significant effect, but a modest one next to other influences on trust, and context had a significant but very small effect. The authors describe it as the first demonstration of a link between colour and perceived trustworthiness in websites, and suggest designers can choose a scheme with that in mind.
Written from the abstract, Ingenta Connect record.
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Alberts, W. A., & van der Geest, T. M. (2011). Color matters: color as trustworthiness cue in web sites. Technical Communication, 58(2), 149-160.