Over a wonderful brunch, with a rather kind and gracious friend, we were enjoying our conversation regarding well, basically anything.
Our chat had been full of multiple topics with twists, curves and bends.
Something professional, something personal was shared equally between us. We laughed very hard, at life and continued to enjoy each other's company.
With multiple plates of food between us and plenty of thoughtful pauses to not only chew, but give an honest response during our meal together.
I decidedly brought up a newly developed website that I spent a healthy amount of time and energy on. Since I have been the only person to work directly on this page, I figured it was a good idea to have another set of professional eyes take a look-see.
Before you knew it, my friend was happily retrieving their tablet out of their leather satchel and was asking for the web address.
With a smirk, I eyed the remaining pieces of food on my friend's plate, "You don't have to feel obligated to look at this now." In response, "Eh, I'm full and may not want to eat quite as much. The food is really good!"
After I nodded in acknowledgement, my brunch partner cleared a space for their tablet and searched the website.
Watching in anticipation, my friend turned to look at me and said, "I don't like orange."
I sat there, looking at my pal and smiled brightly, "I really love this color!" It's in nature, it's in food!
In response, "I've never liked it." "Why not use that blue color, like the one on your necklace?"
Since I did ask for help, I was open to the idea and said, "I can work with that."
This exchange between two professionals who are also friends, it's very rare event, where one can receive the opportunity to just sit, be oneself and enjoy a friendly discussion regarding just about anything.
In returning to the "orange" topic, the feedback I received was a gold nugget of opportunity. My foodie mate scanned the layout and wording to lend their genuine honest opinion.
They stated, "Everything else looks good... I just never liked orange."
With that being said, once I returned to work, I opened up the web software edit page and tried replacing all orange with a the particular shade of blue my friend suggested.
The appearance of the website was transformed in a way that appeared rather heavy, stoic in nature, sort of unyielding due to this type of blue being a bold strong hue.
So strong was this color blue, that I couldn't look at the webpage for too long... It was as though my eyes strained to squint, in the reflexive attempt to reduce the harshness of the website's overall appearance.
With this alteration of color, no one would have thought that the color alone, would have that much of an effect on the entire appearance of a webpage.
This was my experience. Also, this was not the color I originally chose. In blue, the design and layout didn't seem to make much sense anymore. What I did do, was that I changed all the blue back to the original orange color, and then, I incorporated some blue color in certain areas of the design as a complimentary hue to help tone down the entire, rather citrusy acidic appearance of the webpage. Yup, because in truth, the original webpage had been dominated by orange. To think, that I wouldn't have been able to notice the visual impact this experience had on my entire process, had I not asked for the important opinion of my kind and gracious friend.
Your company is much appreciated.
