Question: What color should a deletion confirmation message be?

This is related to the question *[Should 'yes, delete it' be red, or green?](//ux.stackexchange.com/questions/49991/should-yes-delete-it-be-red-or-green)*, but different because this question asks about a passive confirmation message and not the active delete button.

One might say green, the typical success color, but the delete button was red and it looks weird. Making the message red, because you just deleted something, also makes no sense because red is supposed to be for errors.

In my specific case it's about rejecting or accepting proposals. The options are:

![Green background / success](https://i.snag.gy/a3X7C.jpg) (success)

![Red background / danger](https://i.snag.gy/YYFCX.jpg) (danger)

![Yellow background / warning](https://i.snag.gy/KFDbL.jpg) (warning)

![Blue background / info](https://i.snag.gy/5jNMR.jpg) (info)

Making *rejected* bold puts more emphasis on the difference between *rejected* and *accepted*. The text could also be changed to "You have *successfully* rejected the proposal," which also puts more emphasis on the actual action regardless of the color.

Using no color, a grey background with black text, looks weird. It doesn't look like a notification anymore at all, so I don't really consider it an option.

Finally someone suggested having no message at all, since the proposal will be deleted from the list of proposals. That deletion in itself should be enough feedback, according to that person. I personally disagree, though. It feels weird.

Overall, I lean towards green or blue (success or info). Red messages should be a failure of some kind, and the yellow warning also makes me feel like there is additional action I should take. Green doesn't look like a rejection (the reject button is red, the approve button is green) and blue also feels off for some reason.

Which option should be used?

Answer: 
Don't start with choosing colors!
---------------------------------

### 1. First, distinguish notifications from errors

This is a common point of confusion with UX. Consider these two messages:

* `Sorry, the app has crashed` - This is an error, and should be highlighted as an error (i.e. pop up alert, dialog, red button, etc).
* `You have rejected a date with Kate Upton` - Although this sounds like an error, it is NOT an error. It's a confirmation notification that indicates a negative choice.

In your situation, confirming a proposal rejection is not an error, it's a notification.

---

### 2. Then, make your layout decision

Now that you know it's a notification, color and layout choice should conform with other notifications in your app/site.

So **it's impossible to answer the question of color choice without seeing what the positive (accepted proposal) notification looks like**.

Let's assume you have a pair of notifications: `Proposal accepted` and `Proposal rejected`.

* Generally nowadays it's not a great idea to use colored backgrounds to distinguish the two, because it becomes difficult for the user to recognize them both as notifications.
* It's better to choose a common layout for notifications (e.g. black background, or [toasts](http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/snackbars-toasts.html#)), and then convey the accept/reject message INSIDE the notification.

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aFI8I.png)

* If you need to highlight the accept/reject status more clearly, you can use status icons or colored swatches to highlight the status, but preserve the consistent layout of the notification (in this example, the common black background)

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ig6oH.png)

The specific color, shape and animation of the notifications will depend on your app layout and color palette, but whatever it is it should be consistent between Accept and Reject so that both notifications are clearly perceived as the same species.
**The message indicates a successful action, so if you're using color cues, this message should use the color of success: green, in your case**. The danger color (red, in this example) should be used when the user is *about to do* something destructive (e.g. "Are you sure you want to delete this?"), but the message you're asking about is for when the user has already *done* it. **The danger has passed, so you shouldn't use color cues that could indicate danger still being present**. Unless, of course, the situation is dangerous for some other reason.