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: 
I would recommend moving away from colour for confirmation messages in this case. 

I say this because it can be confusing for the user especially since you are using red and green for "Reject" and "Accept" so when they have successfully done an action moving from red to green can be disorientating and unworthy extra cognitive overflow. 

Take a look at Google how they are doing it with what they call snackbars and toasts. 

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8mgxP.png)

By eliminating colour and using language such as "Successfully" like you mentioned it becomes less about the mental model associated with certain colours and more about the message. 

**Edit:**  

Have just seen Daniel answered with a very similar solution! 

If you have other messages then you pretty much have to follow the pattern you have created.

So if this is considered a successful completion of an action and all other actions that are successful get a green message, then this needs to get a green message.
**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.