Why So Many Websites Are Blue

A recent article provided an interesting answer to the question of why so many websites feature the colour blue (yes, we acknowledge we're a little guilty of that ourselves). Blue is also the colour of Xero, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Inland Revenue, BNZ, ANZ among others. The article indicated that Mark Zuckerberg has said Facebook is blue because he is red-green colourblind, and, anecdotally, Google has said the colour clicked best in rigorous A/B tests.

It then indicated that repeat global surveys have found that blue is the most - preferred colour among both men and women, more or less regardless of country. In labs and A/B tests alike, subjects associate the colour with trustworthiness and dependability - which may explain why blue is a fixture in many website's "login" and "buy" buttons.

In one 2011 study, researchers at Loyola University Chicago and the University of Massachusetts Amherst had 279 students look at the logos for a fictional company - each of them identical except for colour - and then evaluate their perceptions of that firm. The white-logoed company was seen as sincere. The red one? Tied to excitement. The blue company was, far and away, seen as the most competent. It is unclear scientifically why we prefer blue as a colour and how it is represented.

But with the sites represented above being so popular and often copied, one can expect the wave of blue to continue and grow.