It has been said a background color or page color can keep a visitor on your site. Is this true? If so, what colors are recommended? What works the best? See this page and I like the color on this page layout....works well with images on gallery. Thoughts?
Background color isn't the only thing you need to consider when designing a website. You need to take the whole color palette into consideration. Yes, your background color appears to be most prominent in both cases but that isn't all that matters. Users are more stay on a website if it looks professional enough that they can trust the information on the website. If I may comment on these pages specifically, there appears to be a LOT of text and ads, and very little pictures or graphics for aesthetics. Especially considering they are on the topic of cartoons. You may also want to consider using a more spacious line-spacing in your paragraphs. As far as the background color is concerned. the light blue is probably ok. But it isnt very oftern that you see white on orange. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do it, but I would definitely focus on finding a cleaner more appealing layout.
I believe it should be obvious why I closed the second link you pointed to right after opening it without bothering what the site was about like I did with the first link. I don't enjoy my lots of inch screen being covered with an eye irritating orange color. You can test yourself, paste an ebook onto a new page with that orange background and see how long you'll be able to keep reading for without feeling like you need a break. That's the difference between friendly and unfriendly background colors, taken alone from the overall page layout.
Generally color contrast and text legibility is the main issue on color scheme ( bg color and its interaction with other color esp. texts ). Also some color combos takes more energy to read ( means user wont feel convenient on your web for long ). As every web designer ( should ) knows, black text over white bg is providing the best legibility and comfort. But as designers should challenge the border, other color combos is used ( also to provide better align with branding/campaign ). As for me bg color choice is depending on the website's aim, does it want to engage user, hard sell, or is it some web apps that want to keep their user for long period of time on their page ? By considering that, we could better decide what work best for such page. You might want to read more about web color scheme and Web Usability on this issue.
It's not so much about specifically the background color as it does with the entire range of colors used throughout the design. You will need to create contrast between your design and content. This is why you see many websites use a traditional white background/black text approach. It's work for books for centuries so it holds true til this day. Luckily for us, we can use colors with our design. You'll want to avoid anything that clashes with one another in your design. You should never use two extreme colors such as red background and yellow for your text because they are almost impossible to read. Adobe Kuler is a great way to look up what colors compliment each other. Hope this helps.
From my experience as a user, the customer's point of view, I was often times turned off by clashing colors, or even just one color that did not match the content psychologically speaking. In my practice I usually use very solid, primary colors while still maintaining an engaging feel to the copy.
I don't think the background color of the site makes a great impact on the visitors of the site. you just need to avoid contrasting colors. colors at which you can stare for a long time should be avoided.
Also, if possible, avoid repeating pictured backgrounds. This was abused during the 90s, made every website look extremely cheesy. If you do use a repeating background, make sure that it is seamless (so it blends perfectly together). Another thing to consider is your audience. It may not sound like much but I think the colors of a website impacts certain crowds. This is the entire idea behind McDonald's using Red/Yellow - it invokes passion and hunger. If you were a construction company that used a color palette of pinks, purples and browns, people will generally be caught off guard and won't associate your website with construction. There are certain colors which we associate with different jobs and services, keep that in mind.
Yes there is a whole bunch of studies that show the psychology of color, and the emotions they generate in people. You can definitely use color to shape a first impression.
Well we only cant consider, Color combination for our visitor to stay long. Content is the main thing to make them stay, and after that site navigation shud be good. you are perfect is these aspects, the color shud be white or black, doesn't matter. but don't pick color combination which are not very eye catchy, use dark backgrounds and liter fonts, or lighter backgrounds with dark fonts
sites are much easier to read if they have a light coloured background with dark text, and vice versa (excluding visual impairments) & obviously the actual content & layout of the site.
What's really going to keep people on a page is content. That said, color choice is still very important and can make or break a site. I suggest using a website, such as this one, to get a good idea about colors.
A lot of things to consider, white is clean and good choice for background color in your XHTML/CSS or Wordpress Blog.