Green Button or Red Button: Which Color Inspires More Customer Action?

Jonesen TeamProblems We Prevent

When thinking about the user experience on your site, it’s important to consider the small details that many users would never notice. Little things can have huge effects.

One such thing is the use of color on buttons within your page. Color psychology plays a role in how we perceive different hues and take different actions, and it can sometimes be hard to know which color to use. Specifically, we’re going to talk about the use of the red and green button.

Red or Green Button? Inciting User Action

A lot of research has been done to find out whether users are more likely to take action when there’s a red or green button. You would think, because green typically means go, that the green button would be the obvious choice.

It’s not always the case, however, and sometimes the language of a button makes it difficult to decide. Take the following example:

“Yes, Delete Now”

Sometimes, going through a process requires that you come across conflicting language. Imagine that you’re trying to delete a photo, you select the “delete” button, then you come to a point where you’re given two options.

On the one hand, a green button says “yes, delete now,” and the red button says “no, don’t delete.” The colors of these buttons could easily be mixed around and still, make sense.

With that in mind, if a user wasn’t paying close attention to the text on the screen, they might click whichever button seemed most intuitive to them. This could lead to a large break in the user experience and cause some frustration.

Our goal as site designers should be to make the user experience as intuitive as possible, but it’s difficult in instances like these.

More Complications

Another difficulty to consider is that some of your users might be colorblind or visually impaired in some way. It’s estimated that roughly 10 percent of males are colorblind to some degree.

When an individual with deuteranopia looks at two red/green buttons right next to each other, the colors are relatively similar, with one being brown and the other looking off-yellow.

Making a Decision

Although things can get tricky, you’re still going to have to make a decision on whether to choose a red or green button in your site design. Generally, the decision will be intuitive, and the nature of the button, as well as the placement of the content, will help you to decide.

With that said, green is going to be the color that evokes the most intuitive action for users. If you’re faced with a difficult situation, it might be best to lean toward the green button.

Still, trust your gut and do what you feel is the best move for your site in context. Finally, don’t get too caught up in the specifics if it’s becoming an issue. The most important thing you can do is focus on how intuitive the site is and whether users will get the picture.

Is Your Website Feeling Dated?

Choosing between a red or green button is one of the many decisions we have to make when designing a site. Those choices can get complicated, so why not talk with a professional and see if they could try their hand at it?

Visit our site to learn more about web design and how hiring an agency might help your business.