unity-design team mailing list archive

["frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

hi Ian ;)

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 01:40, Ian Santopietro <isantop@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Desaturating inactive applications in the launcher is a bad idea. It
> removes the ability to recognize different icons based on color. That would
> leave only shape, which isn't enough on it's own, particularly if the
> current icon set has many similar icons (like Faenza).
>

you're correct, it is a radical approach to begin with.
The indicator menu's symbolic icons make it clear to us that if a symbol
conveys a purpose, it does not need flashy colors to make that clear to the
user.
On the contrary.
All the color in the launcher is reason enough for me to feel ashamed for
each time it pops out of the left screen corner into visibility.

My approach is radical, and that is probably the reason why it will not fit
so well into this conversation. Nevertheless i'd like to share it, because
it combines different methods of accessibility enhancement, which at the
same time make usability better, too, and recude visual clutter.

I gave the icons in the launcher maximum size via CCSM, because i don't
like aiming with mice and trackpads, and i must say that it felt more
natural and less clutterful from the first moment on, no question. I did
this on every device that i operate a desktop account on, and i don't feel
at home without it anymore.
Backligh always toggles, absolutely!
Naturally i had to remove all but the really necessary icons from the
launcher, especially with the limited space a netbook has to offer on the
vertical axis. Fortunately this forced me into a well organized usage of
space, which turned out to be quite practical, compared to how cluttered
the launcher was before that.

the prettiest order i had in the launcher was with a tailored icon set that
had monochrome symbolic icons for most of the usual apps.
i don't think it should be the ordinary user's use case to have different
browsers in their launcher, which would get them confused when placed next
to each other in monochrome look. this sounds more like a highly
specialized case to me, and the users i know who are that specialized know
well how to remedy such a problem.
For this special case, i'd rather include an exception, such as "keep
saturated always", instead of imposing the exception onto the main audience.