Everyone always turns their heads toward something that catches their eyes. It may be something small or big, plain or detailed, shiny or matted, and the list goes on and on. Whichever draws someone in more, nobody pays more attention to these factors than the one who presents them. Presentation is key. This can go for companies, advertisements, or even events at schools. A huge field that has developed over the years with presentation is the internet. Almost every single person visits one or more websites. Some sites are sketchy while others are trusting. How does one tell which is which? By how the site looks. Joshua David McClurg-Genevese wrote an article about how a website must be designed using certain principles and elements and how to use the web to their advantage to make the site more captivating. I can agree with all of what Genevese has pointed out because of personal experience with the web environment.
Genevese had presented a few articles about web-designing. I will be concentrating on two of these articles. His first was entitled Designing for the Web concentrating on the little details of the basic web. He gives five characteristics that make up the web-environment. Resolution, designing for browsers, web-safe colors, graphics compression, and text. Instead of going into great detail about each subject, I will give brief summaries of each based off of what Genevese wrote.
First, resolution. This topic can be interpreted or referred to in different ways. In general though, resolution is usually the quality and size of images, videos, or the web browser itself. Higher resolution equals higher, grade A quality. Web browsers are second on Geneves’s list. Browsers are things used to actually connect to the internet. A couple commonly used are Chrome or Firefox. Each has their own pros and cons, so designing an actual website on them all depends on what you want and how much the browser can support your design and data. Third, web-safe color is a set color palette that is rendered consistently in browsers on two major computer operating systems. According to Genevese, “a true cross-platform Web-safe color palette is 216 colors”. Distortions of colors in images could occur if one were step outside of this palette. Next, images need to be optimized for the web so the right colors, size, and format can be rendered. This is called graphics compression. GIFs, JPEGs, and PNGs are three most commonly used graphic compression options presented. Lastly, the way words are expressed onto the site. This is also known as text. There are multiple fonts available for someone to use with personalities of their own. To make it more captivating, it would be best to choose a type of text that fits with theme one is going for.
In Genevese’s second article, Principle and Elements of Design, pertains to the designs of websites using incorporating the elements that artists use when creating a piece or taking a photo. It is quite straightforward talking of the basics such as proportions, colors, lines, balance, etc. All of these elements and principles are taken into account when trying to create something attractive and not so confusing so the user may have an easier time looking at the site and not want to click out right away.
The reason I agree with Genevese’s material he had wrote about is because I can understand how the internet and websites work. I am on my laptop for almost the whole day. During this time, I usually go onto a site called YouTube. I discovered the site when it was first starting out in 2006. Back then, its website design was still starting out, and it was not as sleek as now. The colors were the same as today, red, black, and white, but, each person’s channel, a feature of YouTube, was based on their own color scheme causing it to be confusing, and the layout was a little unorganized. Today though, a person’s channel’s profile and banner design’s are still individually customized, but the colors do not clash and the layout for each channel is the same. It is less confusing and jumbled and very easy to follow if someone were to just start using the site for the first time. I put a comparison of the front page of YouTube below this paragraph of 2006 and 2016.
YouTube Front Page 2016
YouTube Front Page 2006
Since YouTube is a video based site, the resolution of videos are taken into account. 1080 pixels and 60 frames per second has become the highest, smoothest resolution that YouTube has offered so far. It is incredible how well the videos play compared to ones that are only 480 pixels and 30 frames per second which used to be the highest resolution that was used a few years ago.
Each site is created differently, but based off of Genevese’s article, the basic rules he presented of what makes a site is quite on point with sites today. Even if a person does not realize that they are doing it, their minds know what is attractive and pleasing to the eye. Once again, presentation is key and very important to anyone who uses the internet to present something through a website.