Color psychology — the study of how color affects mood, emotions, and memory — has the potential to improve learning outcomes. Humanities students who studied color-coded course content remembered more of what they’d read as a result, a study published in Heliyon reveals. Red was the most effective color as it aided memory retention for 57% of students, whereas black was least effective (it helped only 20% of students). As humans are visual creatures, color impacts the way information is absorbed and retained. So, if you want to make your online courses as engaging, valuable, and effective as possible for students, customers, or employees, color psychology principles can do just that.

The science behind color psychology

Although the reasons behind why color influences mood, memory, and learning outcomes are varied, it largely comes down to the fact that sight is our strongest sense. “90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual”, MIT Sloan reveals. That means color has a huge impact on the brain’s visual neurons. When you see colors, different parts of the visual cortex light up in response to help you recognize and associate each individual color. So, as your brain is basically wired to remember colors, that’s ultimately why it's easier to remember information when it’s accompanied by color, far more so than it is to remember black and white text or spoken information.

Blue aids relaxation and focus

Colors like blue and green (peaceful shades found in nature) can reduce stress and anxiety and put you in a relaxed, focused state that’s conducive to learning. Blue, in particular, has been proven to improve performance in creative tasks, a study published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) reveals. This is likely because you often need to be in a calm and relaxed “flow state” in order to excel creatively — and blue can help get you there. Research from Lund University also echoes this research as blue was found to relieve stress and improve focus. Consequently, blue can help people perform tasks quickly and with greater accuracy.

Red stimulates cognitive function

Warm colors like red, yellow, and orange can boost alertness and cognitive function, which, in turn, aids memory retention. In fact, the AAAS research also found that red specifically improves how people perform on detail-oriented tasks. However, as red is such a bold color, it shouldn’t be used too much. The research also found that heavy usage of red overstimulates learners and causes them to get distracted.

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Well-designed courses aid employee satisfaction and retention

When you consider that learning development is vital to employee satisfaction and retention, it’s all the more important to design your course well. Your ultimate aim is to help employees learn efficiently, so they can progress in their position with you. In fact, 48% of American workers would happily switch jobs if the new one offered skills development opportunities, which highlights the potential of upskilling to attract and retain employees. “If your employees feel that they’re growing and developing skills [that] suit their strengths and their career goals, they are going to be more satisfied and more likely to stay in their roles”, Amplify HR founder Karen Kirton explains.

Use color and contrast to increase focus

Fortunately, strategic use of color can engage employees and make your course more effective. So, for example, to use color to stimulate focus, highlight key parts of the text with different background colors to emphasize important points. This adds variety that breaks up the content and makes it easier for students to take in the most useful information. Be careful not to overdo it, though. Use color sparingly to prevent the course looking cluttered, otherwise it’ll confuse students and hamper productivity.

Also, consider how you use contrast: the difference between two color hues. Past research shows that when colors contrast, the eye is naturally drawn to them. So, choose a background color that opposes and contrasts nicely with the text to increase readability and retention.

Strategic color use is key if you want to create engaging and effective courses. As long as you follow color psychology principles, you’ll help students and employees better absorb and remember your content, so they achieve better learning outcomes.