Formats and Conventions!

[balkis]

Hey guys,

Just a quick question! I was studying, and i realised that i only had a vague understanding of Formats and Conventions. Now i know what they are and what they're used for...but how do i differentiate the two? And what falls under each category? For example, Proportion and Orientations and such...are those Formats or Conventions? Any detailed help would be greatly appreciated! (Oh and i know that there are different Formats and Conventions applied to spreadsheets and databases )

Thanks!

[abraverman]

Taken from the TSSM Units 3 & 4 IT Applications 2012 booklet

Formats
Formats refer to the way that information is presented. For example, paragraphs of text, tables, text, graphs, images or sound.

Conventions
Conventions refer to commonly accepted ways of presenting each format. For example, right justification of numbers in a column of a table. There are three levels of conventions; mandatory, preferred and optional.

Website specific conventions
• Do not use underlines (this can be confused as hypertext).
• Limit use of bold and italics.
• Avoid using all capitals for word sentences.
• Paragraphs should be short (4-8 lines).
• Use thumbnails for images to reduce loading time.
• White background and black text.
• Green and red should not be used together as color blind people can not distinguish between these.
• Whitespace should be used appropriately to make the page more readable.
• Each page should have a different concept or idea.
• Should not have to scroll down to far to find information.
• Navigation should be available at the top of the page.
• The bottom of the page should include information about the last modification date and person.

Hope that helps