Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design

Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2014.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tang, Annie Yue
Other Authors: Terry Knight.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/92644
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author Tang, Annie Yue
author2 Terry Knight.
author_facet Terry Knight.
Tang, Annie Yue
author_sort Tang, Annie Yue
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description Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2014.
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spelling mit-1721.1/926442019-04-12T14:35:27Z Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design Assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design Tang, Annie Yue Terry Knight. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture. Architecture. Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2014. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 42-43). It is without a doubt that color is one of the most important and distinctive features of any physical or digital product. With the expansion of the world wide web and increasingly new digital media and online technologies, the color choices that web designers make become a forefront of discussion. A well-designed color palette improves a web page's visual aesthetic and facilitates user interaction. In spite of the wealth of information currently available for designing websites, it is not easy for web designers to create cultural and industry appropriate color selections and determine the best usage for color on a webpage. This thesis project addresses these concerns in two parts. In the first part, a color analysis tool ("Palettes") is created to collect data on how colors are being used in existing websites. The abilities of Palettes include finding 1) the full spectrum of colors used on a website, 2) the percentage of each color on the page, 3) the CSS properties of each color, and 4) the HTML classes or ID associated with each color. In the second part, a semi-automated empirical study of approximately 2,000 websites across 24 countries and 12 different industry-related categories was conducted using this tool. From the pilot study, it can be seen that the primary usage of a website's main colors are in highlighting "action" features, such as buttons and links. Results also show that certain colors can be identified as universally used in website design for all countries and categories studied, but culture-specific and industry-specific palettes can also be identified. Examples of "preferred" palettes are presented along with suggestions on how designers can work with such palettes. by Annie Yue Tang. S.B. 2015-01-05T20:01:25Z 2015-01-05T20:01:25Z 2014 2014 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/92644 898125250 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 43 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Architecture.
Tang, Annie Yue
Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
title Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
title_full Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
title_fullStr Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
title_full_unstemmed Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
title_short Digital palettes : assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
title_sort digital palettes assessing cultural and industry specific color usage in website design
topic Architecture.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/92644
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