ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Nathan Haines <nhaines@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/11/2016 01:42 PM, Peter Bittner wrote:
> After some days with OTA-10 I must admit I have a hard time accepting
> light-blue is the new orange.

I was immediately struck with the same thought, but didn't say anything 
for two reasons:

The blue color in the indicator menus was explained to be a bug due to 
misusing the color theme names, and so I expected it to change back 
after a week or so.

After that didn't happen and the new palette was announced, I thought it 
was only reasonable to take some time to get used to it.

Frankly, I haven't gotten used to it at all.  It's out of place and 
doesn't match any of the colors, which tend toward brand orange (which 
seems to have changed over the past six months) and various warm greys. 
 And because most of the apps were designed with this in mind, the 
indicators and OSK look really, really jarring and out of place. 
They're bright in a way the orange never was.

As much as I appreciate the clear, deliberate work that was made in 
defining the new palette, I think this was a major misstep.  It doesn't 
look like Ubuntu, and doesn't match the design sensibilities of the 
desktop, either.  And that's the worst thing:  I don't use Ubuntu on my 
Nexus 7 very often because it's not terribly useful.  (I expect this to 
change rapidly with convergence and the rebase on snappy.)  But I 
absolutely don't want these colors on my desktop in 16.10.  They're 
jarring and unsettling.

The indicator colors insofar as they match the blues, greens, and reds 
of the desktop are fine.  But as accent colors for toggle switches and 
slider bars, they make the OS look *really* unprofessional.  The only 
thing missing now are yellow and purple and we'll have every single 
color in the system theme.

I'm happy to offer suggestions or let the Design Team do what they 
usually do best.  But I hope there's an opportunity to revisit the 
design spec here.

--
Nathan Haines
Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com/