Chapter 5 - Key Ideas
OK, here is (still) the deal...
Add AT LEAST ONE comment to this post about the KEY IDEAS you found in Chapter 5 of "Visual Design for the Modern Web."
The earlier, the easier it will be to find unique ideas... No Repeats!
posted by Dr. John @ 1:19 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
I loved the hexagon palette! It actually made sense to see it laid out in a circle-esk way. I understand why programs don't make this a box on the side but they really should start thinking about it. Maybe put a little slider on the bottom to add more white or black to the whole thing so that a user could pick out even more colors right from a box on the side of the screen. Yeah, Photoshop should do that...
I found the section covering RGB colour codes interesting and the hexadecimal numbering system very interesting. While using the colour picker in photoshop I had always wondered about the colour code involving letters that in the bottom window. However, after reading about RGB colour codes I learned that this is a hexadecimal system, which can easily be converted into binary. Here's how I understand this system to work. A pure white in RGB is displayed as 255, 255, 255. When this number is converted into base 16, one would get 4080, 4080, 4080. However, this is still a larger decimal to be working with. Someone had the great idea to infuse letters within the decimals because they can hold multiple decimals in only one character. In binary, A=0, B=1 C=10 D=11, etc. And for base 16, A= 10, B=11, C=12, etc. With that said the base 16 number for pure white (255, 255, 255) woud be FF, FF, FF. Or, F(15) x 16^0 = 15 and F(15) x 16^1 = 240. Add them together (15+ 240) and you get 255. However black is much easier since there is no projected colour, the intergers for RGB would be 00, 00, 00.
I thought the section on color rendering was important. It is very important when choosing colors on one's site to keep in mind that the color output varies on different monitors. A certain hue of green may look great on your monitor, but on someone else's monitor it may not look as well as you thought. The book mentions that some colors may not even show up on other users' systems. These are things to consider when choosing color schemes for a web site.
I thought the "Choosing a Color Scheme" section was interesting. Not only does a good color scheme make a website more appealing and organized, but the specific colors evoke certain emotions in our minds. The book went through many different colors and what reaction they cause. I have always found this concept interesting, and I remember first hearing about fast food places choosing certain colors to make people feel hungry. This same idea must apply to websites as well.
I thought the color proportions was interesting. It is a good idea to make you most vivid color to only cover a small part of you page. It will ease readablitlty alot by doing that. A 60% proportion of a subtle color, a 30% proportion of a brighter color, and 10% of a vivid color is probably a good guideline to follow because a site that is too bright won't get alot of people to come back again.
I'm sure that this is common knowledge with all the learned people in the class but I think she did a good job of refreshing the readers with the basic principles of color. She explains primary, secondary and tertiary colors along with shades and tints, as wheel as the rest of the basics in the theory of color. Its basic enough for the newest user and simple enough to not bore the old hand.
I enjoyed the "Choosing a Color Scheme" section. It was nice how the chapter explained how different colors had different effects on people who view your page and your page affects the overall mood of the site. It broke down colors and gave the feelings they could lead to: ex)Purple -- rich, elegant, creative, spiritual, confident, sensual and much more. Green -- natural, fresh, clean, healthy, hopeful, youthful, abundant, rebirth, spring, soothing, cool and clean.
I felt the part on color contrast was fairly important. Its important because it can allow you to emphasize items on a page you want the user to see. You have to make sure though the contrast is just right, red on green, or yellow on white can be difficult to look at. Text and graphics should contrast in value with the background elements. You should be able to remove all color from a design (grayscale it) and it should still be legible.
I found the section on the web-safe palette interesting. I wasn't aware that it existed. A series of 216 colors that are recognized universally across all browsers and systems. that is helpful to know when selecting a color scheme.
i thought it was cool reading about the four specific color attributes: hue, saturation, value, and temperature. Its nice learning the technical terms for things; like how Hue really means the specific color. Value refers to the lightness of a color. And then saturation is the level of purity or intensity of a color, and the temperature is the "feel" warm or coolness of it.
I liked the section on background colors. In particular when she talked about neutral backgrounds and seperators make a difference. She talks about how using neutral seperators (for example black or white) tend to make the image "pop" more. And when you don't use the neutrals it makes the image look more "modern". I prefer the use of black and white separatos because I think it makes the image stand out more and grab my attention.
The idea to test your color schemes by printing them out is a good idea. Lots of people print off websites for reference. A lot of the big sites, like Wikipedia, have a basic color scheme that is easy to read and easy to print for future reference. Especially if you are designing an e-commerce site or a site for a client, it's important to figure out if they will be printing the pages to show potential customers, so it's important that the webpage is readable when printed (or that a printer-friendly version is offered).
It's interesting how the template of a site can change the way it's viewed. On the other hand, the web-safe colors are an interesting note because some users may not see something on their monitors (if you're like me and have your brightness down to 5 while your contrast is at 85). The templates and palettes are very useful in finding complimentary colors in displaying both a site that is attractive and widely accessible.
I am going to comment on a couple of things because the thing I found to be the most interesting has been used a few times, but I still wanted to bring it up. The web-safe palette was was something I had never heard of until now. I figured it existed, but I didn't realize that there are colors that certain monitors just done recognize. It's definitely something to remember when creating my website. Another thing that can tie into the websafe palette is accessibility. Basically, making sure that our pages are legible to anyone with color vision impairment. Along with this making sure that color is no the only clue to meaning. (a link should be underlined and a different color.)
As most have discussed, I found most interesting the topic of color. More specifically I was interested by how the chapeter explained the coding process. I have always wondered how that process worked, and now its just a little bit clearer to me.
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