In your opinion do we still need to use the
browser safe color palette? This is a palette of about 216 colors that should display the same on most browsers, monitors, and operating systems. But most people use monitors with millions of colors, so limiting your designs to only 216 colors may seem extreme. On the other hand, there are still a lot of people on older monitors with fewer colors, and non-browser safe colors can look absolutely hideous when the monitors try to guess.
Are the browser safe colors still needed?
Do you design pages with the browser safe palette? Or do you stick with these colors alone? Let us know in the comments.
What is your favorite color palette?
Comments
There are three main colour modes - 8 bit, 16 bit and 24/32 bit. The 216 “safe” colours are in the 8 bit and 24/32 bit pallettes but only 7 of them are in the 16 bit (65536 colour) pallette meaning that those colours are in fact not very safe to use at all. Most people these days would be using at least 16 bit colour and so those 65536 colours could be considered to be safe.
In any case it only really makes a difference when trying to match colours between different elements where unsafe colours may be rounded in opposite directions in finding a colour that can be displayed leading to slightly different colurs being used. The better way of handling this is to use transparency so that the same background colour shows through.
If visitors don’t catch up with the the technology, to hell with them, these are the minority anyway.
Rich is a little harsh about this ’safe color’ thing. I don’t think browser safe colors are a big deal to use in most cases. But, there are a lot of casual or purpose driven-users who really can’t afford or don’t need to keep up with the technology. Saying “to hell with them” shows me a disrespective and reckless attitude towards those who may be deliberately or out of necessity, technologically impaired. Mellow out dude!
Comments like Rich’s show an amazing insensitivity to potential customers. I would never work with someone with that attitude.
Personally, I usually try to stick with the basic (safe) colors most of the time. However, if doing a site for someone who needs color, such as a photography studio or art gallery, “safe” colors are not possible. Therefore my vote was “it depends.”
Sorry, but Rich is right. If you have a computer that can’t view millions of colors, then you’re probably not going to even care that a website’s colors don’t look right.
Come on, this is 2008. Do music companies still release music on cassette or 8-track because “some people might still have those technologies”? Absolutely not. Society is waaaaaaay beyond those media forms, and any individuals who are still using them have chosen to be left behind.
The same is true with computers. Technology has moved forward. If you aren’t up to speed, that’s your problem. Web designers do NOT need to design with “web safe” colors to accommodate this tiny minority who haven’t kept up.