Testing Your Front Door Paint Color Ideas with Helpfull

For home decor enthusiasts who are looking for a quick-and-easy home improvement project that won’t break the bank - look to the front of the home. With just a can of paint, a little elbow grease, and a weekend to spare, homeowners can revitalize their home’s outdoor facade with this one simple project.

A fresh coat of paint on a front door is one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to add a whole new look to any home. Other home improvement projects often entail expensive up-front costs; adding a new shade of color to your front door is not only budget-friendly - it can transform the way you appreciate your home. From the curb all the way into the front entryway, a fresh face on the front door can wow guests and family alike.

For new homeowners and seasoned property holders alike, utilizing just two simple applications takes the guesswork out of choosing the right paint for your home. Using Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer and Helpfull’s intuitive image-comparison surveys, homeowners can test color palettes for their doors on the fly - getting immediate, considered feedback on their choices all the while.

Choosing The Right Front Door Colors

When undertaking a project like this, it’s prudent to consider the impact the new paint job will have on the existing furniture and architecture of the home. An entryway is a very integral part of the house; finding a color that compliments and welcomes guests into your home is easy, assuming you know what your end goal is.

If you’re looking to make a strong first impression with your guests, or just simply like to experiment, then going with a bold and stand-out color is heavily encouraged. A front door is a minor commitment when compared to painting a whole room - so try something new! Getting feedback on your boldest color choices is a great way to determine whether that shade of Chartreuse you’re after is too much or just enough.

If you prefer a more neutral option - find a wood stain or a color that compliments the existing color palette of your home.  

If you’re stuck and undecided, consider your surroundings - try to find tones that match with the exterior facade of your home. Using a natural shade is a great alternative for those who would prefer their homes to blend in with the natural landscape.

When purchasing paint for your front door, factor in the weather’s effects on the paint. Buying exterior paints made with weather-resistant latex is always recommended. The finish of the paint is something to consider in your purchase as well: a high-gloss finish highlights the architecture of the doorway, while a semi-gloss paint does a better job at hiding dings and door damage.

Getting feedback from a community of your peers is often the best way to build confidence in your decision-making. With just a few simple surveys, it’s never been easier to put eyes on your home improvement projects.

Using Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer

While you’re likely to find several applications that perform a similar function, the Sherwin Williams ColorSnap® Visualizer is the most intuitive and efficient way of testing out colors for any of your home improvement needs.

To get started with the app, all you need to do is choose whether you’re testing on the website’s sample room - or if you’d like to upload your own photo.

The Sherwin Williams’ application allows you to upload and test colors on any photo you’d like. Once you’ve uploaded your desired photo to the site, a brief walk-through tutorial will point out the different features of the tool. The masking tool feature allows users to draw out areas of the room they would like to test colors on; once a selection of the room (the ceiling in our case) is mapped out, the user can quickly test out different colors by dropping swatches into the designated areas.

The ColorSnap® Visualizer allows users to browse and save a selection of color swatches to a palette for easy use. Once the front door is painted, users can press the “download” button to save a test photo that features their mock door and the color palettes featured.

Once you’ve got your color selections saved, you’re ready to get testing!

Survey #1 - Color Testing with Image Comparison Surveys

Now that we’ve got our color palettes selected and our front-door touched up, it’s time for us to send out some surveys.

We’ve picked four colors we would consider mocking up out the front door, and apply them with the paint visualizer. Using a Helpfull image-comparison survey, we send our options out to 100 Helpfull pollsters; in just 20 minutes, they return with a consensus.

Nearly half of the participants we polled voted to choose the Luxurious Red paint for our front door. Throughout the dozens of considered comments we received, pollsters shared with us their many reasons for choosing their favorite color option. They gave us feedback on the merits of how complementary the color was to the existing architecture, how vibrant and welcoming the shades were, and what each color said about the welcoming nature of our front porch.

With such a clear consensus on the winning color, we can remain confident in our decision-making; knowing that half of our peers picked this shade out from the rest means this vibrant red is a sure-fire hit!

Survey #2 - Front Door Color Considerations From A Helpfull Community

When looking to get feedback on your design choices, surveying a general audience of pollsters is not only an easy choice - it’s the smart one.  You’re effectively getting what market research firms pay millions of dollars yearly for. Asking the Helpfull community advice is like sampling from a community of your peers - people just like you, who are eager to give you considered advice on your projects.

For our second survey, we tested a darker exterior facade against some bold and visually-resonate color choices. Within 16 minutes, we’ve received a myriad of new advice and color considerations from our Helpfull community. Ultimately, the choices were much closer this time; our audience couldn’t quite decide if the Burgundy was the best, or if Salty Dog was top-dog.  

Utilizing a simple A/B test this time, we wanted to test the veracity of our results. We sent out another survey - one that only includes Burgundy and Salty Dog. Sure enough, when stacked up together, panelists just couldn’t decide which color they felt best fit our front door.

Survey #3 - Fit Your Audience To Your Design Needs

When creating surveys for your design considerations, it's important to decide who you want in your audience.

Choosing a specific target demographic for your surveys can vastly improve the quality of responses you receive. Helpfull breaks audience selection into two categories - general audience, and specific demographics. From there, the demographics are broken into dozens of different categories that ensure you can design an audience that best fits your surveying needs: sex, age, political affiliation, or even what social media platforms they use. For our purposes here, we’re going to send this poll out to homeowners only. We hope our front door paint colors will really wow our audiences this go around!

Much like our second survey, our panelists were torn between two outstanding color decisions. Some homeowners voted for the Greenblack on the basis of its more neutral tone and complementary shade; others felt the energising presence Showstopper brought to the room made it the superior choice. We cull the lowest performing choices, and move onto a tie-breaker survey.

We send out one more A/B testing image-comparison survey - this time, using only our top two color choices. When searching for a decisive answer, running multiple surveys is always the best way to verify the results.

This time, the decision was far more apparent; the recipients of our follow-up survey were overwhelming in their support of the darker, more natural tone. With 150 homeowners tested, we can be sure Greenblack will help create a welcoming, stylish front entryway for our home.

Decorate Your Home With Helpfull Feedback

Whether you’re just picking up a brush for the first time - or you’ve got a degree in design - just two simple apps can make any homeowner feel like an expert home designer. When homeowners make decisions backed by community consideration and advice, no home improvement project is out of reach.

An intuitive user-interface, coupled with the ability to gather hundreds of consumer responses in just minutes, are just a few of the features that make Helpfull the ultimate tool for any artist, designer, or marketer.

Become a home improvement guru with Helpfull Feedback - sign up with Helpfull today, and get surveying within minutes!