[This page describes a course that has already
taken place.]
Saturday, February 15, 1997
Marriott Hotel, San Jose, California
| Organizer | Charles Poynton | |
| Presenters | Mary Mooney, Charles Poynton | |
| Level | Intermediate, full day | |
| Description | Work with color and type in the CHI community is often undertaken with a base of experience and a sense of craftsmanship, but without a firm foundation in the principles of perception, science, and engineering. In this course, I will explain the perceptual and physical principles that underlie the effective use of color and type. The course will use 35 mm slides and computer projection. Audience interaction will be actively encouraged. | |
| Objectives | In this course, you will learn the perceptual, color science, and engineering principles that underlie effective information presentation. You will learn to apply these principles to the design of graphical user interfaces and information displays. | |
| Intended audience | This course is directed to graphic designers, interface designers, and developers of on-line information. You should have experience in developing user interfaces, experience in creating and manipulating digital imagery, or experience in writing or illustration. | |
| Instructors | Charles Poynton is founder and principal of Poynton Vector Corporation, where he works to integrate video technology, particularly high definition television and accurate color reproduction, into computer workstations. He wrote, designed, illustrated, and typeset the book A Technical Introduction to Digital Video, published in 1996 by John Wiley & Sons. Mary Mooney is a Human Factors Engineer in the Industrial Design group at Sun Microsystems. Prior to joining Sun, Mary worked as Information Architect for Ikonic Interactive, designing web sites and interactive television applications for Time Warner. While working as a Principal Multimedia Consultant for Sybase, Mary spent several years designing Multimedia applications, computer based training, and prototypes for IBM, Ford, and World Cup Soccer. She has taught computer graphics at the college level, and has given presentations at several industry conferences. She has a degree in Fine Arts with post graduate study in Advertising Design and Illustration. |
| 9:00a-9:45a | Visual perception | Adaptation, viewing conditions; acuity, contrast sensitivity, viewing angles - determining how much detail your viewer will perceive; contrast ratio - how to improve subjective sharpness; how we read - saccades and fixations | |
| 9:45a-10:30a | Tone reproduction | Lightness sensitivity - determining whether lightness differences will be visible; Nonlinear coding and gamma correction - why image data is coded nonlinearly; halftoning, dot gain - how to create the illusion of a large number of tones or colors in a limited medium; how to avoid getting caught! | |
| 10:30a-11:00a | -- break -- | ||
| 11:00a-11:45a | Color reproduction | Spectrum to tristimulus - how an infinity of physical spectra are captured in just three components; color discrimination - how to determine whether color differences will be visible; color blindness; color image coding - RGB, R'G'B', Y'CBCR; color gamut - computer monitor colors, NTSC colors; transfer of color to print - CMYK | |
| 11:45a-12:30p | Color in computing | Color selection - which color space to use for which applications; pseudocolor (color mapping or indexed color) - palettes in general; color image conversion; dithering; web palettes | |
| 12:30n | -- lunch -- | ||
| 1:30p-2:15p | Typography | Typefaces - serif and sans serif; outline and screen fonts; letter spacing, word spacing; line length; line layout and line breaks - setting ragged and justified; page layout; functional and visual aspects | |
| 2:15p-3:00p | Illustration | Composition; line weight, type size, shading, color selection; considerations in producing an illustration for multiple media; integrating an illustration into a conventional or on-line document | |
| 3:00p-3:30p | -- break -- | ||
| 3:30p-4:15p | Information design | Composition and layout for on-line display; Design elements: ground, shape, size, texture, type; examples of successful and unsuccessful designs | |
| 4:15p-5:00p | Q & A |
Charles Poynton - Courses & seminars
1997-01-04