Unit 5-1 Screen Design Principles

After completing this unit, you will be able to:

• Arrange text in the proper size, color, and font on a multimedia screen.
• Choose an appropriate background color and understand how foreground text colors interact with background screen colors.
• Arrange pictures on the screen either as background images or design elements for text to flow around.
• Make text stand out against a background photo.
• Adopt a common look and feel for the screens in your application.

Reading

Read chapter 18 of the Multimedia Literacy textbook to study the concepts covered by this unit.

Online Activities

The hands-on tutorial in this part of the book will enable you to place text anywhere on the screen in any size, color, or font you want. You will learn how to put pictures on the screen, either as backgrounds that appear behind the text, or as design elements around which text flows. Then you will learn how to make your screens interactive by making hypertext links and placing buttons on the screen. Before you begin, it is important to understand a few principles of multimedia screen design that will help you make screens that have a good layout. After you read chapter 18,  complete the following online activities to illustrate important concepts and bring the readings to life:

• Follow the Multilit Web site link to see the standard fonts that are built into all Windows and Macintosh operating systems and Web browsers. Listed below them are downloadable fonts, but you need to be careful if you decide to use a non-standard font. If your application uses a font your users don't have, you must publish that font along with your application. Most fonts are licensed and protected by copyright; make sure you have permission for any fonts you distribute.
• In the next unit, you will learn how to create colored backgrounds upon which you will place foreground text in different colors. The choice of the foreground and background colors is up to you. Some color combinations work better than others. The Multilit Web site demonstrates on screen the recommended color combinations and colors to avoid.
• It is important that multimedia screens be easy to use. When you plan your layout and decide where you will place pictures and text on your screen, make sure you include navigational buttons, icons, or hypertext to clarify what the navigational options are and where the user should click to navigate. The Multilit Web site contains a collection of icons designed to help users navigate.

Assignment

After you complete this unit, you will be ready to answer the assignment that asks you to:

• List three different ways you could write a hypertext instruction on the screen which, when clicked, takes the user to the application’s home or startup screen.