The influence of color on web page complexity and color recommendation

Abstract: The complexity of a web page has a great influence on the user's understanding and comprehension. There are many factors that can affect page complexity, such as color, block number, number of texts, etc. Color is not only a factor that affects complexity, but also a factor that attracts the user's attention most on the page. Previous studies on color mainly focused on the basic attributes, such as hue, purity and brightness. However, there were few studies that utilized quantitative calculation methods to evaluate color complexity and webpage color matching calculation. Thus, the present study is set out to explore the impact of colors on page complexity, considering three main factors: the number of colors, color area and color ranges. In order to determine the upper limit of the number of colors for page complexity, a polit study was carried out using webpages as an example, then experiment was conducted within this number of colors to explore the most comfortable color area and color distance matching. The result revealed that: If the number of color is less than six, it will not feel very complicated. The average color area value of the entire web page should vary between 200-1100 pixels (assuming the area of each pixel is 1), the recommended color range is between 0.5-1. Finally, we proposed a page complexity calculation formula including the above three elements which are used as independent variables to calculate the page complexity value. Color matching of webpage can be recommended within this range. The complexity of the matching page obtained in this way is relatively moderate, and it looks comfortable and concise for users. The formula of this article can evaluate the complexity of existing pages, certainly it can also be utilized to develop a set of color complexity calculation model.

Keywords: color, page complexity, color attributes

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001721

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