Re: [Ayatana] Fwd: Re: People expect the backlight colours on the unity launcher to mean something.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 26. mai 2011 16:29, Ed Lin wrote:
> It's just a gimmick that was copied from Win7. A lighter highlight
> background would aid making running applications more visible.
> See "[Ayatana] Idea for improving visibility of running applications" for more

Well, I certainly won't argue against learning from the best.
And if success is measured by the number of users, then there
can be no doubt who that is. If you want to be really good, then
you have to pay attention to what the best are doing, but there
is a difference between watching and staring. Those who stare
become followers whereas those who watch are waiting to
take the lead. You have to learn from success, but it's every
bit as important to learn from the mistakes, and I think that
if Microsoft is doing this, then that is a mistake and we should
not follow.

It is aesthetically pleasing. It really is and that's important. But
it's more important that users are comfortable with their
system and if people feel that there is an underlying logic
that they're not able to grasp, that doesn't boost confidence.
I believe that the current use of colours in the launcher indeed
has that effect, hence I think it's a mistake.

Simply switching the backlights to toggle, will go a long way
towards eliminating that effect and also makes it easier to
see which applications are running. But I don't think it's
enough, because it has a negative side effect. Look at the waste
bin, for instance. It becomes almost invisible when you switch
to backlight toggles.