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Web Design. M. Jacie Yang Assistant Professor School of Journalism & Mass Comm Texas State University- San Marcos. The Goal of Web Design is Usability !. Usability . Usability is the measure of the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system.
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Web Design M. Jacie YangAssistant Professor School of Journalism & Mass Comm Texas State University- San Marcos
Usability • Usability is the measure of the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system. • You want your website to be: • Ease of learning • Efficiency of use • Memorability • Error Frequency • Subjective satisfaction Source: usability.gov
Four Elements for Web Design • Page Layout & Structure • Fonts & Typography • Color • Images & Graphics
Page Layout & Structure Source: http://pixelactic.com/
Page Layout & Structure • Homepage dimension: • Your main content should show in the browser when people load the page. • That means: • Should be smaller than (most) users’ computer screen. • Should not scroll horizontally. • Not too long. • Example: 800px wide.
Page Layout & Structure • What is on your page? • Header • Navigation system • Main content • Footer • You can use HTML5 tags to structure these elements: • <header></header> • <nav></nav> • <section></section> • <footer></footer>
Fonts & Typography • We use fonts and typography on the Web to... • Make the content easy to read? • Make the Web pages look pretty? • We can tell the Web browser what specific font to use and what font family to use. • Example of CSS body {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
Fonts & Typography • Font size • Measured in pixel or em • Font family • Serif • i.e. Times New Roman • Sans-Serif • i.e. Ariel
Too Many Colors = No Color Repeat after me, please!
Web Colors • RGB • R=Red • G=Green • B=Blue • We use a six-digit color code to specify RGB color. • White: #FFFFFF • Black: #000000 • The first two digits stand for RED; 3rd&4th digits stand for GREEN; 5th&6th digits stand for BLUE. • Each digit ranges from 0-F (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F). • Thus, there are 256 possibilities for RED (16x16); 256 possible colors for GREEN; 256 possible colors for BLUE.
Colors • Tints: adding white • Shades: adding black • Tones: adding gray Source: http://www.tigercolor.com
Colors • Places that can help you pick colors that go well together: • http://kuler.adobe.com/ • http://www.colorblender.com/ • Check color contrast: • You want to check if there is enough contrast between two colors, especially when you have a color for your text and then a background color. • http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html
Images & Graphics • File size should be small • Usually no bigger than 100 kb. • If it is a graphic with limited color or a small logo, file size is usually around 20 kb. • Use appropriate file format • For photos (true colors), use jpeg or jpg. • For graphics, use gif or png. • Optimize your images in Photoshop BEFORE putting it into Dreamweaver!!