Download Fluffy Clouds

Tan Yen Ling (Adelyn)
0315222
Kevin Lim Kien Fong
0319821
Colours
Tharashini a/p Selvam
0309858
Navigation
Wendy Lim Ern Ching
0303420
Don’t Make them
Wait
Yip Yuin Yahn (Mandy)
0308370
Don’t bore Visitors
Colours
Colour is one of the most important aspects when you are
designing your website. Also, it has to be the first thing you
should think of when you’re designing because colours can
be the reason visitors are attracted to your website. It is safe
to stay within 216 colour pallets because browsers nowadays
don’t support any higher numbers.
Giving suitable colours for different parts of the website is
important. For example if you want your readers to focus on
one place of the website, use yellow as it is mostly used in
caution signs and it is said to be the first thing you would
notice. It is as if the brain is designed to recognize this color
faster than the others. However, you should use it cautiously.
It is true that you could attract readers, but it will also hurt
and (or) annoy readers eyes when it is there in the website
the whole time.
One example of successful use of the color of yellow
If you have no idea which color to use when designing
your website, it is easy to start off simple. For
example, using black texts on white background. This
is the simplest set up you can use for your website
because it is commonly used and it would be the
easiest to read while not irritating the eye. Example of
it are as the picture below.
There are many colours to use since different
websites use different colour themes. It can
have a very big psychological impact on
readers and how colors can provoke reader’s
emotions. Colours can also be used to express
the website’s main subject. For example,
Green is used in a more greenish related
website such as golf or lawn sites. Blues and
white background are normally used in
business sites while maternity sites are often
associated with pink. Red is also normally
used on food sites.
Conclusion
You should choose very carefully which colour
to use when designing your website because
of how impactful it is to readers. It could be the
factor that readers decides to stay on reading
or just leave due to its good or bad readability.
In conclusion, picking the right colour for your
website is really hard but once you get the
hang of it, readers will enjoy venturing into
your website. Not to forget that colour is as
important as the content that is used in the
website.
Navigation
One aspect of good web design is a main page that
has the insignia of the company on top of the page,
together with any other important details that might be
needed for the page. It should be simplified to reflect
the personality of the company as well as having
systematic and smart links to other web pages within
the same website. It would be helpful if a description
appears about the next web page by hovering the
mouse over a button leading to that web page. One
good example of a website that has a good balance
of both functionality and aesthetic value is Rinzen
which has a lot of buttons located at the top of the
web page, leading people to slowly discover what
each page is about by hovering over each button.
Secondly, a lot of the web pages are filled with
attractive, uniquely drawn art pieces that truly
reflect the pages creativity of art design. It is
also simply to work with and really makes
accessing a lot of web pages within the web
site simple. This is the true brilliance of a
simple yet functional design with gives an
added dimension of flexibility to the website.
Another thing to consider for the navigation aspect of
a website is the smart use of link titles. It is obvious
that the more usable a link title is, the better the
website's design aspect will be. However, it would be
even better if the website itself uses link titles that
demonstrate the website's personality as well as gives
the website a feel that’s entirely its own. A website that
executes this technique well is Pete Fowler's website,
Monsterism.net which uses link titles that have been
creatively made to show an artistic whimsical side that
is all its own. Besides enhancing the feel of the
website, it doesn't compromise on the functionality of
the site. This gives the site a feel of a professionally
made website that would be known for both it’s art
and music.
Finally, it is also important that links that have
already been browsed by the user should be
shown in a different colour than those that
have not been clicked on browsed. This would
save a lot of frustration for the unsuspecting
user, who would otherwise be searching for
something new on a site in which most of the
links have been browsed or clicked on. The
knowledge and usage of different colour
schemes is definitely something to consider.
Rinzen uses a lighter colour to indicate visited pages. The
lighter the colour, the more frequent a user visits the page.
Conclusion
All in all, it is important to consider all aspects
that might increase the ease of browsing for
the viewer. If a website is pleasant to browse,
all the more reason for the viewers to visit it.
Waiting
When embarking on creating a new web site, it is best to
create a site that caters to its visitors in the most user
friendly and practical manner. It is not obligatory for the
graphics and sounds to have the highest quality respectively,
because this will be impractical to the everyday site visitors.
The amazing sound quality and visuals of the site will be
redundant if the page can’t even finish loading before the
visitor loses interest and closes the page. In today’s fast
paced age, time is of essence and people now lack patience.
They will therefore move on very quickly from your site if
they are made to wait. Generally your audiences are
operating on a screen between 15-19 inches wide, can only
view 216 colors and downloads at a speed of 28.8 kb per
second. With such information we can follow a few simple
rules to make your site visitors more satisfied.
The first is to make sure that your page can finish loading fast
on a 28.8 internet connection. To achieve a faster loading
time, you as a site owner should create a web page no bigger
than 50K. Yahoo is the humble site we are talking about. This
proves that you can really do a lot within that very little size.
In order to get your site under 50K, your graphic images
should aim to be as small as possible. A size of under 4-6K
should be ideal. Also when designing a graphic for the site,
the number of colors needed is a grand total of 216 only.
Choose solid colors when designing your image.
With the gradient tool PhotoShop has popularized fancy way
of making site background borders fade things in and out. It is
quite common to see the usage of this visually appealing
make up on sites today. Upon right clicking you can check to
see that the size ranges between 8-12K. This large space is
wasted on lots of color and dithering which is unnecessary
and ends up making your site users wait a long time for the
site page to finish loading.
A good rule of the thumb is always to use more
design and less graphic. An ideal and
successful web page needs to download at top
speed and still look good. Both can be
achieved if you use color schemes for your
site. No need the fancy hassle of designing
graphics and having jpg pictures. For the
boarders of your site page, use cell colors.
Always maximize the use of negative space on
your site. Simplicity is highly valued, thus
ignoring what is not there is just as bad as
ignoring what is.
Moreover, when it comes to graphics, choose
wisely. Ask yourself if that extra graphic has
the power to attract your audience to keep
coming back again and again. If so, it’s a
keeper. However if it’s not much of a crowd
puller you should scrap it.
Conclusion
Site users always appreciate not waiting more
than necessary. We must remember that the
web is here to be making life easier thus any
amount of extended time users sit waiting for
heavy web pages to download is
unacceptable.
Visitors
One of the elements in designing a good
website is the background. The background of
the website should be attractive and simple at
the same time. A website can have a blank
white background, which may drives visitor’s
attention away to focus more on the
navigations, web content and colorful images
or banners displayed on the web page. For
example, Hybrid Works chose a blank
background, associated with simple and yet
eye-catching visuals to attract visitors.
Another element is that the color scheme
should be precise. A good color combination
helps to improve the website and also sparks
interests among visitors. On the other hand,
each design has its specific theme. It can be in
any genre, as long as it does not lose interests.
Here is an example of a design which I found
intriguing:
The design of Pixles & Aromates is whimsical,
fun and light. When compared with Spectrum
Powderworks, visitors would not feel bored or
confused when they visit the page.
Pixles & Aromates
Spectrum Powderworks
The third element is the font. From all the
websites visited, there is a balance between these
two aspects. Title fonts should be in the center if
attention; it can be fancy, decorated while simple
fonts such as Calibri or Georgia can be used for
contents. If both title and content fonts are used in
a same style, viewers might find the site boring,
unappealing. The final element is the
arrengement. A good web design must be neat
and well-organized which every information
displayed are presented in their own specific
sections. The content displayed also should not
be overpowering the web page. For example of a
bad website is Rudgwick Steam Show.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a good web design comes in a
whole package: background, simplicity, good
colour combinations, font designs and
arrangement. An inetersting website is not
because of the content presented, but the
main aspect is the design itself.
Reference

2 Create a Website (n.d.), Colour Psychology in Online
Marketing, 2 Create a Website, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://www.2createawebsite.com/design/colorpsychology.html>

Agarwal, N (n.d.), How to Reduce Loading Time of Website to
Make it Faster, InkThemes Blog, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://www.inkthemes.com/how-to-reduce-loading-time-ofwebsite-to-make-it-faster/02/#>

Davis, M 2014, 10 Ways to Make Your Website Load Faster,
Hostway Blog, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://hostway.com/blog/10-ways-to-make-your-website-loadfaster/>

Francis, C 2013, 40 Stunning Website Designs with Great Color
Schemes, One Xtra Pixel, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://www.onextrapixel.com/2013/10/25/40-stunning-websitedesigns-with-great-color-schemes/>

Hybrid: Works 2014, Hybrid Works, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://www.hybridworks.jp>

Monsterism.net 2014, Pete Fowler, Green House Group,
viewed 7 October 2014, <http://www.monsterism.net/>

Patel, N 2012, How to Make Your Site Insanely Fast,
Quicksprout, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://quicksprout.com/2012/09/20/how-to-make-your-siteinsanely-fast/>

Pixles & Aromates 2014, Pixles & Aromates, viewed 8 October
2014, <http://www.pixelsetaromates.com>

Quinn, M 2014, How to Optimize Your Website’s Performance
and Keep Customers Happy, Forbes, viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2014/02/19/how-tooptimize-your-websites-performance-and-keep-customershappy/>

Rinzen 2004, Nose Fall/ Winter Catalogue, Rinzen,
viewed 7 October 2014, <http://www.rinzen.com/>

Rinzen 2014, Rinzen, viewed 7 October 2014,
<http://www.rinzen.com/?id=628>

Spectrum Powederworks 2014, Spectrum Powderworks,
viewed 8 October 2014,
<http://www.spectrumpowderworks.com/>

Webweaver 2014, Formating Tips to Speed Up Your
Website, Webweaver, viewed 8 October 2014,
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
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viewed 8 October 2014,
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