Google tested 41 shades of blue to choose a link color
Verified Confidence: medium
Primary source found; it says the same thing, the scope matches, and it is reasonably current.
- Commonly cited as
- "Google tested 41 shades of blue"
- True origin
- Douglas Bowman (Google's first visual designer), stopdesign.com — Goodbye, Google (Mar. 20, 2009)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2009
- Data as of
- Blog post Mar. 20, 2009
- Last checked
- What the source says
Yes, it's true that a team at Google couldn't decide between two blues, so they're testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better.
- Method & sample
- First-hand account in a resignation blog post; no published test results.
- Drift between quote and source
- Source: a critical first-person anecdote; results and revenue impact were not published in this source
- Interest
- Personal blog of a departing employee criticizing data-driven design.
Safe rephrasing
Former Google designer Douglas Bowman wrote in 2009 that a Google team tested 41 shades of blue to see which performed better; he cited it as an example of over-reliance on data.
Sources we opened
- stopdesign.com — Goodbye, Google (primary)
Machine-readable: /api/claims/google-tested-41-shades-of-blue.json · Last checked 2026-10-16