1) Web safe colours are a set of 216 colors that is considered to be the “web-safe” color palette, developed during the time when most computers only display 256 colours. A set of colors was needed that could be shown without dithering on 256-color displays. Only 216 was chosen partly because computer systems have reserved sixteen to twenty colors for their own use; it was also selected because it allows exactly six shades each of red, green, and blue. These colours were chosen also because they were the closest to the colour palettes that most browsers are using.Web safe colours also also defined by RGB hexadecimal values, eg. #000000 for black.
2) As of today, web safe colours are less commonly used because most machines can display at least 16-bit colours, so they would display Web Safe Colours without a problem. However web safe colours can all be diffrentiated by human eyes and therefore often used in anti-phishing systems. Also as a design standard, web safe colours can still be found in many design programs, Illustrator, Fireworks etc. Designers use these to make sure that their colours are web safe.
3) Common fonts for Windows and Mac are fonts that are installed in both Operating Systems. Common fonts are used in web design so that both Operating Systems can display the web page. If the font used is not avaible in the system it will not be displayed, therefore its important to make sure that the fonts are common between the systems.
The common fonts between Windows and Mac are;
| Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif | |
| Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif | |
| Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS5, cursive | |
| Courier New, Courier New, Courier6, monospace | |
| Georgia1, Georgia, serif | |
| Impact, Impact5, Charcoal6, sans-serif | |
| Lucida Console, Monaco5, monospace | |
| Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif | |
| Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua3, Palatino6, serif | |
| Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif | |
| Times New Roman, Times, serif | |
| Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif | |
| Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif | |
| Symbol, Symbol (Symbol2, Symbol2) | |
| Webdings, Webdings (Webdings2, Webdings2) | |
| Wingdings, Zapf Dingbats (Wingdings2, Zapf Dingbats2) | |
| MS Sans Serif4, Geneva, sans-serif | |
| MS Serif4, New York6, serif |
4) Page loading time is the time needed for the computer to retrieve the HTML code or other data from the web server A long page loading time is because of heavy HTML, large filesizes, and a large HTTP request or response size. When the load time to too much, the designers might remove certain features or widgets from the website to fasten the load time, affecting the design and the page’s features. Large data filesize will also increase load time, image quality or amount of graphics is reduced to lessen load time, this affects the looks of the page’s design.
5) I think the web design process is a long process. There are many important procedures that should not be left out.
For example, under “Design Process Revealed”, we have things liek typography, composition, thumbnails, and research. These are all the very basic and important things in design. Typography being neccessary, because typefaces have to be legible to deliver content, composition to arrange the elements in a website so that the important pieces of information are in the focal point, thumbnails solely for the basic idea of how the site looks like and research for the appropriate and content for the site to provide for the readers.
Also, under the “seven phases of website development”, initially it was concept which is the idea of the website’s design. Then we have content development which is crucial for almost any site, without good content it will not be a good website. Another important step is post launch. Although the site is up and running it is still important to evaluate what happens after launching for further improvements.
There is also a few things mentioned under “Breakdown of design process”, which are Knowing what one is doing, Knowing what the site needs to do, and Knowing what the visitors want. I feel that these three are important because the designer needs to be sure of what he is doing to have a website design that is organised and suitable. Knowing what the site needs to do, which is knowing the purpose of the site and what are its goals, this might also mean knowing what kind of information to deliver and what features are appropriate. Lastly, knowing what the visitors want, this is to cater to and please the viewers of the website, and not to have irrelevant information. I feel that, if the designing team does not know what the visitors want, they might end up with a website that visitors do not want to read or will not come back again.
