Organizing Colors
Colors are one of the most important building blocks of any interface. They have a huge effect on the overall perception of a digital product. It's important to structure colors. If we don't structure colors, we can find ourselves overwhelmed by how many colors we use by the time we reach the end of the design project. Building a consistent system of colors, reducing the number of colors used, and eliminating unnecessary duplicates is important in UI design. Here are some tips for structuring colors.
Create an interface inventory. An interface inventory is a method of categorizing the components making up our app or website. Interface inventory will show how many colors we use in our product. Check the number of times each color is actually used in code. By doing that you’ll notice that some of the colors are used in many different places, while others are used only once. The insight we get will help us organize our palette.
Define the foundational colors. When it comes to selecting whites and blacks, it's always better not to choose extreme versions of colors. White doesn’t have to be absolute white. Similar to that, black doesn't have to absolute black. Depending on how strict we want to be with our color palette, include a range of tints and shades. But be careful, having too many tints and shades can make the procedure of color selection harder. Low contrast neutral colors are bad for elements that require reading but fine for elements like input fields. Input fields don't need to stand out very much so low contrast neutral color can help us create a perfect UI container.
Interactive colors are colors that we use for interactive elements such as buttons, links, and other UI controls that users can click or touch. Try to use only one color as your primary interactive color. By doing so, it will help our user memorize this color. We can create lighter and darker versions of our interactive color. Color shades can help us convey different states for our UI elements, such as a pressed state/hover state.