Graphical Web sites on the Internet meet thousands of world wide users with many kinds of design concepts. The major Graphic element is the image and as a frontal visual element the image always gains the first impression of the users. The image's design function is not just to illustrate information; the image can stand as a visual language itself.

English is the traditional language on the Internet because the Internet's history largely began in the Western World (the U.S). However, the English language is sometimes not accessible to the non-English speaking countries. Commication difficulties are more serious among the non-Romanic writing cultures such as the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Indian and some other cultures in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. The lack of ability to read other writing characters may uplift the image as a communication media. The image is understood by people all around the world. It is a universal language and very practical to say something in a visual way.

Image Treatments

As mentioned as before in the previous chapter, image treatment on the Web site is determined by the different background of its authors.

The case studies in Chapter eight show the differences between sites that are designed by a different author. Good image treatment comes from professional designers, of course. This is because the designer will be more sensitive to the placement and quality of an image.

Image Usage on the Internet in the Future

A.Visual Demand VS. Technology

It was in back in the year 1991, when the first World Wide Web files and browsers were demonstrated by CERN in Switzerland. A year later, WWW was released by CERN as an Internet tool. The demand for graphical sites increased and the number of Internet hosts now exceeds 1,000,000.

The technology to support visual graphics on the Internet advances at least one step behind the users' visual demand. This is true: demand always come before the solution, and the solution is technological advance.

Browsers that support graphical Web sites such as Mosaic and Netscape grow in their flexibility with new Internet script languages. Java script for instance: the hot Internet essential in 1995, expands the capabilities of Netscape.

In the 1990s, both Internet users and computer programmers are talking about multimedia on the Internet. The Internet goes Interactive: Shockwave animation opens the way to bring motion images and new navigation to the Web sites. Animation communicates dynamic concepts more clearly than do static images.

Many of the new media types take hundreds to thousands of kilobytes. No matter how glitzy a walking, talking Web presentation may be, fickle Internet users will pass it by if they do not get swift gratification. The only real cure is either a tenfold improvement in capacity, which in the case of the Web means vast improvements in compression technology or bandwitdth allowance.

Demand for more visual information is not limited to visual images from the past. Now Internet users are able to access the visual on their computer srceen while an event is on going. The ultimate in multimedia adventuring is virtual participation in cyberspace. Virtual reality, or VR, lets users construct imaginary 3-D worlds and then navigate through them as though physically present.

B.Television and Internet

Will the Internet replace broadcasting? Five-hundred cable channels can be accessed via sattelite. Internet broadcasting will bring real-time audio and video-radio and T.V. to modest desktop machines over ordinary phone lines. This doesnıt mean the data stream will download for 20 minutes and play-later clips, but audio and video will stream through the wire in real time.

Internet broadcasting is overcoming technical obstacles like the narrow bandwidth of phone lines, the limits of compressing multimedia data, and the vagaries of Internet packet transmission.

C.Designer' Roles in the Future

Internet brings a new revolution in communication history. The capabality of Internet to get global audiences together in one forum (in real time) was once unthinkable by the public. Internet expands the visual reality backyard of information. The global source of information is around the corner.

There are no certain organisations that really govern the global Internet. Therefore, everyone is eligible to create their own Homepage. In some circumstances, the owners of information might hire the web publisher to create and design the Web site for them. In addition, since the Internet is booming in this decade (early years of Internet) the roles of Web designer and graphic designer still play a major part in creating the best site on the Internet.

Like any other history of communication, it is expected that some new things will come to replace or compete with previous ones. In the late 50s and 60s for instance, television came to the top ranking of infotainment. In that time, nearly all the programmes on television were produced by the government organisations, such as NZBC (New Zealand), RTM (Malaysia), SBC (Singapore) and ABC (U.S). With full authority over television, governments took it for granted that they will should decide what programmes should be broadcast on the air and what information viewers should be given. The government still supervised even private organisations. At present, in the 90s public organisations have been allowed to broadcast their own T.V. Viewers now deliver more information and T.V has become the medium where the public can choose their own favourite programmes.

As the earlier infotainment medium, radio did not escaped from the same history experienced by T.V. In the 90s, the quality of life of many nations has improved due to a better economy. There have been no major wars in which the whole world has been involved, Therefore, the issue of security is less treatening to government. As a result, there are many people who would like to have their own T.V. station or radio station. In fact, in advanced countries experiencing an information explosion such as that in the U.S, there are too many private cable T.V. or radio station. This phenomenon has also happened in the Internet world. The question is who controls the contents of information on the Internet?

Perhaps the people in power behind every Web site are the programmers and the Web designers. Could they obtain full power to decide which visuals willbe presented on the Web site? When will the public be able to do the same things that designers do, regarding the Web site? However, designers may be more expert than ordinary people to decide which layout or graphic element should be used to present information at suitable target audiences.

Web publishers could panic when if everybody tried to participate in Internet scripting (HTML). However, this only human nature where only the experts attract attention. The experts have always played the main roles in everything. Therefore, the Web designer (programmer + designer) and graphic design (design expertist) will always be in charge if they always update their knowledge in new scripting and go keep up to date forward with advance of global technology. Imaging technology is becoming more important on the Internet world because of the advance in real­time information technology. The bandwidth is getting faster at solving the download problem.

Good Image Better attraction

Good design will contribute to performance. For example, some Australian publishers have come up with a formula that balances graphic (pictorial images) artistry with functional dexterity. The U.S market has gone heavily into large graphic image maps of up to 50k each. This is acceptable with go the good bandwidth available there.11

Let Get More serious!

It sounds scary, but it is a sad thing for the designer to see the akward images that users sometimes are faced with on the Internet. Maybe the presentation of the images on the Internet is nobody is business. People may say who cares! Indeed just like it is in printed media, the quality of images and graphic as well as the contents might play a big contribution in attracting readersı attention. Images can bring down the standard of the site because in on­line businesses every site competes with each other. We provide the information and to be user friendly one site should be accessible and be a pleasure to go through.

Magazines can come in many designs from GQ to RAYGUN from traditional to experimental but they still look nice. They are designed effectively to suit their target readers. This is similar to the Web site maintaining small images that look better than showing big akward images that take extra time to download.

Creating good images could be easier if one knew how to choose the right compression and file format to bring about good results in creating images. Working by hint is actually the best way to to find good images. Experience with both the JPEG format and GIF format: determent in which better or worst for certain kind of image (photograph and flat colour). Refer to 6.1.iii.

Let is be serious again, choose pratical images: images that are functional. When used images are important to the body of information, users will appreciate this. As a Œgiftı to the users, the author may present them with a good quality Web site. They (the users) may come again to your site or perhaps they will never be back again.