Which of the following is NOT a best practice for using colors on pages?

• A. Select a small and consistent color palette for your site
• B. Use colors to reinforce the structure of each page
• C. Use a great variety of differently colored card and box layouts to draw the attention of users to the various areas of your UI
• D. To draw attention to a single data point in your UI, use a vibrantly colored card

Answer: (C)

Color should be used with intention and consistency. A small, consistent palette helps users quickly recognize structure, scan content, and maintain a cohesive feel across the page. Using colors to reinforce structure—assigning specific hues to sections or content types—gives predictable cues that aid navigation. It’s common to emphasize a single data point with a vibrant card, but this should be limited and chosen with good contrast to avoid distraction.

Introducing a wide variety of differently colored cards and boxes across the UI creates visual noise, disrupts the perceived hierarchy, and makes it harder for users to focus and understand relationships between elements. That scattered approach is not a best practice, which is why this option is the one that doesn’t fit.