[FM Discuss] Testing new front page

[Gregory Pittman]

On 10/31/2016 07:18 AM, Mick wrote:
> Great thanks Marvin
> 
> That's good feedback. I think I'll be able to do those things. 
> 
> I'll wait to see if there's more feedback and add it to the page here 
> https://gitlab.com/mickfuzz/fm_en_splash/issues
> 

I'm not having any luck registering for gitlab.

Edward Tufte has done a series of books on design, starting with "The
Visual Display of Quantitative Information". This first book mostly
focuses on showing information in graph or graph-like forms, with a
theme that when you do this, you should make sure that the information
you want to show is not visually swamped by non-information,
particularly considering the way that the eye is attracted and
distracted by colors, bold black lines and bars, and so on.
He also addresses computer displays, and complains of the tendency for
designers to often splash the screen with pretty, multicolored areas, as
if the goal is to show a rainbow-like effect on the screen.

I think the new design suffers from this to a great extent. The eyes are
drawn to the bold orange areas, where there is no useful information. In
contrast, the areas which denote the various manuals look bland and
uninteresting by comparison, except perhaps for the various project logos.
I would echo the problem with the tabs at the top, and personally as a
general rule I think it's good to avoid white text on a colored
background, due to legibility issues. This is especially true with the
white-on-orange tabs. Furthermore, you unintentionally set values to the
individual tabs, since some colors attract the eye more than others. I
guess that perhaps there is so much orange to provide continuity with
prior schemes, or maybe orange is the flossmanuals team color? Judicious
use of the orange could still provide this continuity.

A scheme that Tufte promotes, when it is necessary to have a lot of
information on a page or screen is to use grayscale in areas where you
which to create borders, define areas, and to be more clear, you can use
shades of gray to show more detail within those areas. Once you do that,
the use of colors in areas where there is important information stand
out much more and in fact your eye will be drawn to where you want it to
go. In general, try to use black text where there is information that
needs to be read. Even a dark gray is less legible than black. For
example, look how the UpStage logo pops out at you, compared to if it
were some shade of gray.

Greg