Ever used one of those fancy color palette generators? You know, the ones where you pick a starting color, tweak some options that probably include some musical jargon like "triad" or "major fourth", and are then bestowed the five perfect color swatches you should use to build your website?

tl;dr: What you actually need

• Greys : Text, backgrounds, panels, form controls — almost everything in an interface is grey.
• Primary color(s) : Most sites need one, maybe two colors that are used for primary actions, emphasizing navigation elements, etc. These are the colors that determine the overall look of a site
• Accent colors: for communicating different things to the user.