Color is a powerful tool in UX/UI design, especially for healthcare apps, as it can influence user behavior and evoke emotions. Most industries have commonly associated colors. Occasionally, however, an uncommon color is used with success.
The standard colors used in healthcare apps are green and blue because they are associated with safety and tranquility. Innovated apps are breaking this status quo by using unexpected colors with success. This text explores five less common UX/UI healthcare app colors: purple, orange, black, yellow, and pink.
Purple: Empathy and Empowerment
Purple is most often associated with luxury and creativity, making it an excellent choice for premium brands but an unanticipated choice for a healthcare app. However, some innovative healthcare apps use purple to stand out. Vitas Healthcare is one such app.
The Vitas Healthcare app assists people with finding hospice care and related services. Throughout their UI, purple is used for headers, navigation symbols, and accents.
Using purple, Vitas Healthcare evokes a calming emotion, which is important when dealing with sensitive topics such as hospice care for a loved one.
Purple is used to signify royalty, which fosters a sense of dignity, enhancing the perception of Vitas Healthcare‘s quality of care.
Orange: Energy and Positivity
Orange is not a common color in healthcare apps, but its use can inject energy and positivity. Headspace, a mental health app that helps manage anxiety through meditation, is a notable example. Orange is a primary color in Headspace‘s branding, used in bright and energetic shades. However, it’s important to be cautious with the use of orange, as it is often associated with alerts and alarms. Reserve use of orange for branding purposes rather than functional elements.
Headspace uses orange for buttons, highlights, and progress indicators, drawing attention to interactive elements and guiding users through the app’s features. The overall interface is calming and serene, while the orange elements add a lively touch.
Headspace aims for consistent user engagement to maximize the app’s benefits. Orange stimulates enthusiasm and creativity, promoting regular use.
User experience and engagement are crucial for Headspace‘s success. The app’s use of orange demonstrates how color can enhance the user experience effectively.
Black: Sleek and Modern
While healthcare apps typically prioritize trust and reliability, black is an unconventional choice. However, it can create a sleek, modern look appealing to a broad audience, showcasing versatility and inspiring new design approaches.
Withings offers many healthcare apps that monitor the heart, pulse, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. They incorporate black as a primary color in their UX/UI design, associating it with sophistication. In the healthcare space, black evokes a sense of premium quality and innovation, which aligns with Withings‘ positioning as a provider of advanced healthcare monitoring.
Black instills a sense of trust, reliability, and accuracy. It evokes a serious and focused atmosphere, encouraging users to engage with their health data straightforwardly and efficiently. However, color interpretation can vary among cultures. For example, in Japan, the color black indicates death, making it an unwise choice in healthcare applications. UX/UI designers must be mindful of cultural differences to ensure the app resonates positively with the target audience positively.
Using black effectively in their app design, Withings enhances the user experience by combining aesthetic appeal with functionality and reliability in health monitoring and management.
Yellow: Optimism and Clarity
Yellow is often associated with caution, making yellow an unusual choice for healthcare apps. However, Zocdoc incorporates yellow as a primary color in its app design.
While yellow conveys caution, it also indicates positivity, energy, and warmth. The Zocdoc app incorporates yellow as a primary color in its app design. The app offers a service that assists people in finding and scheduling appointments with healthcare professionals. The app’s user-friendly interface allows users to search using specific criteria such as specialty, location, and accepted insurance plans, making accessing the healthcare they need easier.
Besides evoking caution, yellow also summons positivity, energy, and warmth. Zocdoc created a warm and friendly atmosphere using yellow to make the app feel user-friendly. The yellow call-to-action buttons, icons, and highlights enhance visibility and draw attention to important actions like bookings, schedules, and health information. However, like orange, yellow should be used carefully in functional elements because of its relation to alerts and alarms. It should be reserved for branding purposes to avoid confusion.
By incorporating yellow strategically in its app design, Zocdoc enhances the user experience by creating a visually appealing and user-friendly interface that promotes efficiency and accessibility in healthcare management. The Zocdoc user experience is visually attractive, and the interface encourages efficiency and accessibility.
Pink: Compassion and Calmness
When used properly, pink can be a successful choice for a healthcare app’s UX/UI design. Pink can add a unique touch, making a healthcare app feel more personal, compassionate, and approachable.
The IMC Women’s Health App is a healthcare app that allows women to manage their health intimately. The app encourages women to take control of their health, incorporating pink as one of its prominent colors.
Pink is often associated with femininity and compassion. The color conveys a sense of care. The IMC Women’s Health app uses pink for icons, tracking features, and other elements, creating a comforting and welcoming environment. It makes a soft and calming feel while presenting health-related data and resources. Pink reduces anxiety around women’s healthcare. With reduced anxiety, proactive healthcare management can begin.
By incorporating pink in their app UX/UI design, IMC Women’s Health creates a supportive platform that addresses specific healthcare needs and well-being among women.
Conclusion
In healthcare app UX/UI design, color choice is more than an aesthetic decision: it impacts user engagement, behavior, and emotional response. While green and blue are standard colors in the industry, the strategic use of unconventional colors like purple, orange, black, yellow, and pink showcases the potential of color to transform brands and enhance user experience in unique ways.
By incorporating different color choices, healthcare apps can stand out visually and create more meaningful, user-friendly experiences. This unique approach to color in UX/UI design stresses the importance of thinking beyond traditional color palettes, ultimately contributing to improved healthcare outcomes through enhanced user interaction and engagement. Additionally, when selecting colors for a healthcare app, users who experience color vision deficiency (CVD) should be considered. Designers should incorporate elements and colors to ensure accessibility.
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