The Guide - Making Usable Websites

Making Usable Websites

	Introduction
	Print Vs. Web A comparison
	Reading on the Web
	Writing for the Web
	Color Usage
	Heuristics and Metrics
	Things to avoid
	Conclusions

Related Links

1.	Jakob Nielsen's Website Usable Information Technology
2.	WebDesignClinicA good resource site
3.	Customer in sites.Customer friendly sites.
4.	Design better Web Sites
5.	Collection of ResourcesFor Web Designers
6.	Global TrendsProvides stats for different items related to WEB
7.	Counter for your WEB Site
8.	Web Authoring Resources To assist you.

Making Usable Websites:

Color Usage

The Primary colors are defined.

Secondary color = Primary + Primary

Tertiary Color = Secondary + Primary

Black, White and Grey are called neutral colors. 3 primary colors lead to 12 colours at tertiary level. They can be organized on the circumference of a circle. The colors that are diametrically opposite are called complementary colors. Near complementary colors have good contrast.

Hue : Color with no neutral color added

Tint : Hue + White

Shade : Hue + Black

Tone : Hue + Grey or Hue + Varying degrees of its complementary color

Value : How light or dark a color appears

Intensity : How bright or dull a color appears. This is also called Chromaticity.

Popular schemes of color usage are

Triadic Scheme : An equilateral triangle in the circle
Analogous Scheme: Three neighboring colors on the circle

In a 24-bit color monitor the primary colors RGB have 8 bits each leading to 256 X 256 X 256 combinations.

Dithering is basically a process of making one color by mixing pixels of other colors, as opposed to setting a pixel to the color you want. So, no dithering requires the use of 00,33,66,99,CC and FF for each primary color. Thus giving 6 X 6 X 6 (216) web safe colors.

Human perception and cognition are wonderfully proactive processes. We perceive pattern based on mere suggestion. Also, color perception is actually a moderately complex piece of physics and physiology.

Heuristics and Metrics