The world's favourite colour - blue

Above: Colours used on the top 10 most popular websites

Ioana, A. (2017). Why most people’s favorite color is blue – the peruser – Medium. [online] Available at: https://medium.com/the-peruser/why-most-peoples-favorite-color-is-blue-bd84fc4e4dfb [Accessed 26 Dec. 2017].

As part of a study on gender norms carried out in 2012, University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen asked nearly 2,000 men and women what their favourite colour was (Cohen, 2012). Blue turned out to be most popular across the board, followed by green for men and purple for women. ‘Cohen cautioned that he did not survey a random sample of the population, but rather a "convenience sample" of students, faculty and staff at his university, as well as people who heard about the study through social media and link sharing. "However, when I controlled statistically for age, race/ethnicity, education level and student status, the gender pattern was basically unchanged, so that helps increase confidence that the result is not too heavily skewed by who I sampled," Cohen told.’ (Wolchover, 2011). 

'Of course, blue gets used a lot on the internet because we’re not biased towards understanding something particular out of it (like how red shows errors or yellow important bits). Essentially, blue is the color of clear communication, and this is due in no small part to how almost everybody can recognise it — as even color blind people can see it well enough without much effort. What’s more, blue shows up as being one of the best selling color shades for interior design and architecture, and has become a color associated with political liberalism, Christianity and even modern corporate culture — all things that have spread worldwide in recent history, and have gone into warp-drive with the advent of the internet.'

Emotional Reactions to Colour

Interior designers have long used colour to create feelings of coziness or spaciousness. Thought it varies from person to person and people respond differently to different colour stimuli. Blue is the top choice/favourite colour for 35% of Americans, followed by green (16%), purple (10%) and red (9%). 

"A preference for blue and green may be due to a preference for certain habitats that were beneficial in the ancestral environment as explained in the evolutionary aesthetics article."

There is evidence that color preference may depend on ambient temperature. People who are cold prefer warm colours like red and yellow while people who are hot prefer cool colours like blue and green. Some research has concluded that women and men respectively prefer "warm" and "cool" colours.

A few studies have shown that cultural background has a strong influence on color preference. These studies have shown that people from the same region regardless of race will have the same color preferences. Also, one region may have different preferences than another region (i.e., a different country or a different area of the same country), regardless of race.

Conclusion 

If a colour is to be used, blue should be the one. It is the most common favourite colour, is often regarded as being cool and calming, and studies have shown that people with blue bedrooms get the most sleep. 

It is worth noting that emitted blue light has been found to suppresses the release of the sleep hormone melatonin. Blue light filters are now being integrated into device operating systems to help. Whilst important, every display always emits blue light, so the inclusion of additional blue in any of my potential designs wouldn't exacerbate this.