Dashboard Theme Difficult to Read

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Is it just me, or is the dashboard theme difficult to read? My eyesight isn't what it once was, but this isn't helped by the "Add Content" left hand tool bar being very dark, and the font colour being not much lighter. The drop down arrow next to "Blocks" is barely noticeable and the "Search" and magnifying glass icon are similarly indistinct. This may explain why I was spitting teeth out over the "lost" ability to paste from clipboard and to add a stack - I simply did not notice that there was a dropdown which allows these features.

Can we not go with some lighter text colour or some other means of improving the contrast?

By the way, I'm using the default Elemental theme, so it's nothing I've done with my custom theme.

jero
 
mesuva replied on at Permalink Reply
mesuva
I agree with you here.

In fact, when 5.7 was first released the fonts on the left hand side bar were even lighter and didn't render that nicely. I'm lucky to have very good vision, but had trouble at times.

I went on a big rant about accessibility at some point and I think from this fortunately a bunch of updates were made. Some fonts were updated and colours updated, this helped a lot.

However, I still agree that there simply isn't enough contrast on a handful of UI elements, in particular the 'Blocks' label you have mentioned.

The best place to mention this concern is as an issue on github I reckon. I don't think it would take much to fix, just a tweak of some of the colours closer to white.
MrKDilkington replied on at Permalink Best Answer Reply
MrKDilkington
The text label and arrow don't meet the minimum contrast detailed in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#visual-audio-contras...

There is a tool for checking color contrast here:
http://contrastchecker.com/

Using this tool, the text/icon color choices fail all the tests.

Based on what mesuva said, I think it would be a good idea to start looking for UI elements that don't provide enough contrast. When a low contrast UI element is found, take a screenshot of it and note the page it was on, then reply to this thread with the page name and the screenshot as an attachment.

Once a list was made, we could make a pull request with the changes.
MrKDilkington replied on at Permalink Reply 7 Attachments
MrKDilkington
Here are the icons and text that failed the contrast checker from the Page Settings and Add Content panels.

Actually, the black magnifying glass passed the tests, but I agree that it is hard to see.
mhawke replied on at Permalink Reply
mhawke
MrKDilkington replied on at Permalink Reply
MrKDilkington
@mhawke

Your package sounds useful, but an even better option is making core changes.

Are you up for replying with contrast issues you find?
mhawke replied on at Permalink Reply
mhawke
This conversation has been going on for almost 3 years. I give up on the core team paying any attention to this issue whatsoever so, no I will not be expending any more energy in this regard. I will override and move on with life.
MrKDilkington replied on at Permalink Reply
MrKDilkington
I understand your position. As someone newer to the community, I have a different perspective.

This is my current plan:
- identify an issue/someone else identifies an issue
- propose alternative(s)/look for alternative(s)
- include the reasoning, logic, and any references backing up the reasoning and logic
- describe the proposed change with appropriate detail (what the change does/should do)
- if within my skill set, create a pull request with the implemented alternative/see if someone else wants to implement it

The idea is to bring something to the core team that is easy for them to approve and merge.
andrew replied on at Permalink Reply
andrew
As mesuva posted previously, we have indeed applied updates for multiple UI elements in that time, especially when those have been backed up by evidence of insufficient contrast from the aforelinked tool.
MrKDilkington replied on at Permalink Reply
MrKDilkington
@andrew

How would you prefer to handle UI elements that currently do not provide enough contrast (based on results from the contrastchecker.com tool)?

A pull request with color changes or a list of the UI elements with location and screenshot?
katalysis replied on at Permalink Reply
katalysis
MrKDilkington asks a good question, how would the core team like to receive input from users on interface issues and suggested improvements?

Our agency has started to move from 5.6 to 5.7 in the last few weeks and while there are many improvements we find the 5.7 interface lacks the immediacy and intuitiveness of its predecessor.

We have some specific suggestions for improvement but these are not bugs and are not primarily code related and so many not be right for Git?

How can the Concrete5 community contribute to making the user interface the best it can be?
jero replied on at Permalink Reply
jero
I'd like to give a huge rap to @MrKDilkington for producing this free addon

http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/mrkdilkington-customize...

Thanks heaps.