I reckon OD's light brown text is too light - i'd like it as dark as the headers.

@Pete: this design and the color scheme has been in place for close to two years and you're just now bringing this up? hehehe.

Which text are you talking about? Body text title/header (h1's, etc) text?

Snops design makes excellent use of color, IMO, and there is sufficient contrast in the menu bar. Even more so when on white. The use of lighter text is used to highlight the darker text you want people's eyes to focus on.

But this is in Site Suggestions so lets get some elaboration on what light text perthmetro is referring to.

the forum text is much easier to read

The colorscheme as it looks now, seems ok to me. Where is the problem?

Sry for my bad english, I'm Bosnian and live in Austria, so English is not my mothertounge ;)

regards


Amir

Posted By: arwen54 omg, I choked on my water!

I think the design on this site is fabulous and please admins and mods, don't be bullied by anybody to change it now!

The design is staying put for now Karen. and please don't choke too bad... we need you around here :)

I think poor old Pete got jumped here!

I'm not suggesting that the design is changed, but he's got a point about the contrast on the sidebar menu. It's not that clear on my monitor. Mind you I am a bit colour blind and struggle with certain shades of green and brown.

I agree that the left bar has contrast issues. After all, it would be easy to fix by just altering the font color, making it a bit darker.

it's fine the way it is, coming from a designer, it is perfect.

Posted By: OutsiderIf it was up to me, I would consult with the designer and have him make the decision on how many shades to go up.

That would be snop / fullahead.

Wit and sarcasm. Marvellous!

Maybe we should just leave it alone. I don't see many people rushing to tell us they can't read it.

in fact, it's not a complain, just a simple fact. There are rules for minimum contrast in websites and the left column fails the test

And here come the facts:


Colour Contrast Checker

According to W3C Accessibility Guidelines
brightness difference should be greater than >125 (=53.791 on OD)
and the color difference greater than >500 (=169 on OD)

Those facts don't take font size, weight, face, and hover effects into consideration.

On a Mac, just hit command-option-control-8 and contrast will greatly improve. Go on, try it.

Posted By: arwen54 that's the thing..there's a couple of new members along with an old member who are making noises when this beautiful design has been in place for ages.

I cannot understand why you take offense at this thread and even spoke of "bullying". Actually Pete didn't speak about the navigation but about the front page and do you really think his intention was to bully anybody or to just make noise? Have you never experienced that you just realise that you have difficulties with something and why on earth not mention it? This thread started so friendly and with fun. I had a good laugh at outsider's first comment. I I think pete's answer about his aching back on sean's comment why he hadn't notice it earlier is fun too. Don't you have any humor? Why do you see it all so seriously? Fine if you do not have any problems with reading ... but do you really think someone would post this without reason?

Here the facts again ... the font color of the front page doesn't match with the accessibility guidelines either



So if somebody complains about illegibility there might be some reason. We all have different eyes and one might have difficulties whereas the other hasn't. And there is no rule when you are allowed to realize that you find something disturbing.

And just a side note .. I do not think that it was right to ban Pete and not even mention Jeremies vulgar speech. The only difference is that Jeremy was clever enough to butter the admins up at the same time when he was bitching at pete (and stiring the pot) whereas pete was provoking sean which resulted in his ban. Somehow I can understand Sean's reaction but it was not just and it was not a 'chief' decision but a personal thing. He wanted to show strength but he didn't address the actual problem at all. The subject of the thread was worth discussing it and those who disturb such a discussion should be reproved and not those who bring up a valid subject. Shallow harmony on all account is not a desirable state. Sorry, just had to let it out ... :)

JIMHO... the contrast could be a little higher (my aching ancient eyes ...) but the design is beautiful ... so i will abide with whatever management/mods/etc decide ..

I'm not even going to humor the idea that I was buttering up the admins. Because first of all, it's stupid and second of all I'm more of a margarine guy.

I will however say that the reason this topic turned so anti-pete is because pete has once again started a topic and presented his opinion in a demanding manor. And frankly, I'm sick of it and I'm sure many others are too.

I'll leave it at that and say that whoever said we have different eyes is right. Which means there's no way to please everyone with the colors. Right now its fine for the majority, but if we tweak it for the minority, it might not look right for the majority. So we need to find a nice compromise on that. Would bolding the text help it any?

Posted By: ainslie
@bluecafe: please note that I commented above that Pete was "jumped on" meaning that I think his comment was treat unfairly (in this thread).

ainslie, yes I have read it and I liked your post (as most of your posts).
I think you are a very diplomatic person but you have your own mind
and you don't just follow the crowd. I like this ..

Posted By: JeremyDI will however say that the reason this topic turned so anti-pete is because pete has once again started a topic and presented his opinion in a demanding manor. And frankly, I'm sick of it and I'm sure many others are too.

I do not think that you are in a position to decide what should be discussed and what not and your mannor to express your opinion was not only demanding but vulgar. I don't share your opinion about this thread. You always hide behind the crowd or an admin. If only one is complaining about the font you cry "how can you dare" and if some more say the font is illigable you say "yes it would be better to change it". You are really flip-flop always on the side where you expect the most applaus. If you do not like a discussion why not just leaving it alone instead of stiring the pot? Anyway ... I did not want to hijack this thread so I won't comment on this anymore ... :)

@bluecafe and JeremyD: First off, I respect you both as long time members and contributors to the open design community.

Second, you both have spoke your peace. If you have anything else not directly on topic with the original thread to say, please take your conversation off forum.

Thanks in advance.

@Connor: Exactly... everyone get back on topic... in a little bit I will be removing any off topic comments on this thread to get things back in order.

For people with LCD's where the text doesn't look right, or is hard to read... have you calibrated your screen? If not, and your a designer... shouldn't you? so you know that stuff that you release is going to look good at least on screens that are?

One wonderful product that helps you do this (makes it easy compared to the old day of trying to do it manually..) is the Spyder 2. Of course there is several other products out there that does the exact same thing.. this one is just one I have used.

Second.. for tired eyes/color blindness.. isn't that what user styles are for? so you can go in and adjust your personal settings to make a website easier for you to read/use/whatever?

If 90%+ of the people here can see it fine, why change it for the other 10%?, If Internet Explorer only had 10% or less of the market.. would you bother to jump through hoops to make your design display correctly for it? probably not.. the 10% that want to use it.. will simply need to find their own solution...

Isn't there bigger issues on this site to solve? mail being sent through OD being one of those key things? Would you rather time be 'wasted' on a color change, or having working mail?

Everyone, OD mail system is being worked on. It's server related. We will post a new thread once it's fixed.

Sorry Sean,

My comment wasn't an attempt to start another flame war. It was just pointing out that there are more serious issues to be resolved.

However, it is good to hear that it's been tracked down and is actively being worked on.

Continue to the good work Sir.

Ok. That was easy. I just sent snop a message. Lets wait 24 hours to hear back from him. He created the design in a contest to be the design on OD... yes it's been close to 2 years since it went up, but I think he should have a say in this and/ or make corrections.