Look at the lighting in the small room. Adequate lighting enables even a room with dark floor coverings to look spacious if you use the right pattern and layout. If you have little lighting via windows or fixtures, a light color works best in small rooms.
Inspect any tile or hardwood you are considering for a small room. Lines that intersect and are busy diminish the size of a room. If the tile or hardwood pattern may be repeated twice without intersecting lines, it visually increases the size of the room.
Lay tile diagonally or at a 45 degree angle to make a small room appear bigger.
Draw a layout of the room on graph paper and then sketch in the pattern of the flooring. This enables you to experiment without laying out the flooring in a way that decreases the visual size of the room.
Pick tile grout for your ceramic flooring that closely resembles the color in your tile. The intersecting grout lines -- particularly in small size tiles -- visually decreases the size of the room.