Peer Review

Preparing Graphics for the Web

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Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This website is designed to help artists and graphic designers make informed and intelligent choices regarding which image file format (GIF or JPEG) to use, and how to optimize their graphics specifically for publishing on the World Wide Web.
Type of Material:: Tutorial to help understand and choose graphics format on the web.
Recommended Uses:: This would be useful in a web design/development class for either individuals or teams.
Technical Requirements:: Standard browser and internet access. A true-color or high-color display (15 to 24 bits/pixel, thousands or millions
of colors).
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Major learning goals include
- understanding the GIF format
- understanding the JPEG format
- understanding the difference between GIF and JPEG formats and choosing the adequate format
Target Student Population:: Two or four year college students who are interested in web design, well suited to courses such as web development and/or web authoring. It is also a rich source of information for graphics designers.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: The author indicated that prior working knowledge of graphics design and image manipulation software applications is helpful for students.

Rating:
Strengths:: Overall, this is a very good site with useful links that would enable students to conduct graphics design. The tutorial is logically structured, and incorporates theory and examples. It provides a head-to-head comparison between the two graphics formats and provides guidelines to choose the adequate format. The concept demo is the best item.
Concerns:: - The biggest problem with the tutorial is that some browsers are no longer appropriate e.g., NCSA Mosaic, SPRY Mosaic, Spyglass Mosaic, Quarterdeck Mosaic and Netmanage WebSurfer.

- The module fails to provide an adequate context. The comparison section shows
some pictures and then provides a general conclusion. It would have been better
to show pictures of the alternative applications characterized in the summary.
Also some quantitative assessment would help; otherwise simply identify which
method to use based on the qualitative summary.

Rating:
Strengths:: - The strength of this tutorial is theory with examples.

- The module does demo the difference between the two image formats.
Concerns:: - The tutorial is targeted to graphics designers. The tutorial is last updated in 1997. Today, most monitors can set color depth to 24-bits and computers can handle much larger file size and download files much faster. Choosing between the two graphics formats is not a major concern for web designers.

- The author needs to better explain why this is important. Where is the
technology headed? How long will this issue remain? How about adding some
assignments or a test?

Rating:
Strengths:: The tutorial is very informative about GIF and JPEG formats.
Concerns:: - The tutorial is not interactive. The side by side comparison in JPEG needs caption or description of different compression settings.

- The author needs to better define each item in the TOC. The listing of software on the web is helpful but needs to be more comprehensive including your assessment and pricing

Other Issues and Comments:: - The targeted audience of this tutorial is artists and graphic designers which is not the same as the audience of MERLOT/Business/IS site. IS students may need to find other sources if they are interested in more technical details of graphics formats.

- There are no learning objectives.
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