Okay, the 2nd batch of questions for this week! 8D (D8)
1) What is browser-safe color palette/ Web-safe colors?
Browser-safe color palette/web-safe colors is a pallete which is used by Mosaic, Netscape and Internet Explorer within their browser. It contains only 216 colors out of 256 and will appear the same on Macintosh and PC monitors. The RGB values of web-safe colors are 0%. 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%. Also, the colors will appear solid and not dithered. Browser safe color pallete is predominantly used many years ago as most people used 8-bit (256 colors) monitors.
2) Is it still relevant in today’s context? And why?
It is not as relevant today as compared to many years ago since most computers can now display millions of colors. However, there are still a number of people who use 8-bit color monitors even at this age of time. Therefore, the usage of web safe colors can’t be ruled out completely. >:-( I guess it depends on who the target audience is.
3) What are the common fonts face found on PC & Mac?
They are:
- Arial
- Arial Black
- Andale Mono
- Century Gothic
- Comic Sans MS
- Georgia
- Impact
- Palatino
- Trebuchet MS
- Symbol
- Webdings
- Geneva
- Verdana
- Times New Roman
- Times
- Garamond
- Palatino
- Courier New
- Courier
4) What is page loading time? And how will it influence your design?
Page loading time is the amount of time taken for the user to see the landing page. It influences my design in such a way that I will have to consider the following things to make my page load faster:
- Image dimension -> Using height and width tags for images allows the image to load in the background.
- Image size -> Reduce image sizes first. Heavy images load slooooooow.
- Number of images -> Less images are better!
- Widgets -> Don’t put too many widgets into the page!
- File hosting -> Host files on my own server.
- Cookies -> Use the minimum number of cookies for the page.
- Simplicity -> Flash, tons of images and sound effects are not necessary although cool. >:-B
- Tables -> No nested tables and full page tables! Also, use height and width tags for tables.
- Content -> If there’s a big chunk of information, split them into multiple pages.
Basically, simpler is better. It’s good to keep the site clutter free I guess!
5) Web Design Workflow and Process Comparison
Read the web process article above and write what you think about it.(150 min words)
After reading the article, I found out that different companies have somewhat similar workflows despite naming the processes differently. Planning, drafting and production are the three common steps used by the them. I feel that it is important to have such workflow since it can save us a lot of time and it’s always good to plan before jumping straight into the production. Also, I personally like Like A Design Process Revealed‘s workflow:
- No Smoke, No Mirrors
- Research and discovery
- Competitive analysis
- Exploration
- Thumbnail sketching
- Typography
- Imagery
- Composition
- Execution and implementation
I guess I like the fact that his steps are easy to understand to me. :-]
Another thing I realised after reading the article is that websites have to be maintained after their launch. Problems such as bandwitch shortage (hotlinking! >:-s) and heavy traffic flow might occur. Also, it’s important to find out people’s feedback about the website.
Overal, I find the article useful and enriching as I didn’t know that companies have different methods of working. The list of their workflow also serves as a good guide for me when working on a website. Maybe I should start coming up with a workflow which suits me the best too!