Five Approaches to Try When You Cannot Decide on a Website Color Scheme
When planning a website color scheme, adding more color candidates can make the final choice harder. Instead of continuing to search for attractive colors, it helps to identify what visitors need to do and which existing colors should stay. This guide offers five ways to narrow your choices, with a practical palette and HEX (hexadecimal web color code) examples for a farmers’ market vendor application page.
Five questions to ask when a color scheme feels impossible to choose
- 1. Identify the main action. If the page is intended to collect vendor applications, visitors should be able to read the date and participation requirements before choosing “Apply as a vendor.” Not every item needs a vivid color to attract attention.
- 2. Check which colors are already fixed. Start with any approved logo or signage colors. Photographs of vegetables and flowers at a market contain many colors, but that does not mean one bright color from a photograph must become a large page background.
- 3. Decide on the background and text together. First pair a warm off-white page background #F9F6EF with dark explanatory text #3A4640. Because backgrounds occupy large areas, establish a practical reading surface before choosing additional vivid colors.
- 4. Reduce the action-color candidates to two. For example, compare light green #68AF8F and deep green #1E684E for an application button, each paired with white text #FFFFFF. Colors with a similar overall feel can have very different text contrast.
- 5. Compare candidates in the real layout, not just as isolated swatches. Place example photos, application details, cards, and buttons in a draft page. Removing a candidate that conflicts with the information hierarchy may help more than introducing yet another color.
These are decision-making questions, not an unbreakable sequence for choosing colors. Their purpose is to make it easier to explain which candidates you will keep, and why you will reject others.
Example: narrow the palette for a farmers’ market vendor application page
Imagine a page with the event date, stall fee, vendor requirements, and an application form. Use warm off-white #F9F6EF across the page around the photographs and white #FFFFFF for cards containing the application details. Set headings in very dark green #263B34, body text in dark gray-green #3A4640, and use deep green #1E684E with white text #FFFFFF for the primary application button.
| Page element | Color and HEX code | Reason to choose it |
|---|---|---|
| Page background | Warm off-white #F9F6EF | Provides a restrained setting for photos and information |
| Application-details card | White #FFFFFF | Groups the information visitors need to read |
| Headings | Very dark green #263B34 | Marks important sections such as dates and conditions |
| Body text | Dark gray-green #3A4640 | Works for fees, conditions, and instructions |
| Application button | Deep green #1E684E | Gives the main action a consistent background color |
| Button text | White #FFFFFF | Provides light-dark contrast against the deep green |
| Card border | Muted gray-green #6B8275 | Defines the white card against surrounding surfaces |
| Small decorative line | Soft ochre #D6AA62 | Adds a purely decorative detail without conveying a status |
You may keep light green #68AF8F as a comparison candidate, but do not adopt it for the application button with white text #FFFFFF. Use the deep green #1E684E consistently for that action. Likewise, reserve soft ochre #D6AA62 for a short decorative line rather than using it to indicate a status such as “Applications open.” These choices help the reading and action areas remain recognizable alongside colorful market photography.
Check text, boundaries, and actual screens before deciding
Measure the contrast ratio, which describes the difference in relative brightness between adjacent colors. The very dark heading color #263B34 against the off-white page #F9F6EF reaches approximately 11.07:1, and the dark body text #3A4640 against the white card #FFFFFF reaches about 9.86:1. White button text #FFFFFF on deep green #1E684E reaches about 6.68:1. However, white text #FFFFFF on the light green candidate #68AF8F reaches only about 2.59:1. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 generally require at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text.
The white card #FFFFFF and surrounding off-white background #F9F6EF have a ratio of only about 1.08:1. Where the card’s boundary matters, add a muted gray-green border #6B8275. It contrasts with the white card #FFFFFF at about 4.14:1 and with the off-white outside area #F9F6EF at about 3.83:1. When borders or controls are needed to understand or operate a user interface, check their contrast against neighboring surfaces separately from text contrast.
Finally, review the page at a smartphone width to see whether visitors can follow the information from the date through to the application. Do not rely on color alone to communicate states: include words such as “Open” or “Closed” where relevant. HueRoll lets you explore related colors and palette suggestions and save selected colors to My Palette. Its built-in contrast comparison only evaluates the selected color against white or black; it cannot compare arbitrary pairs of colors or automatically determine WCAG AA/AAA outcomes. The color-pair ratios in this article were calculated separately.