[FM Discuss] Testing new front page

[Mick]

Hi Greg,

This seems like sound advice.

I'm wondering would you be able to make some alterations in the css to
reflect the kinds of colour changes you would like to see?

It would be good to see them side by side to check the effects.

nice one

Mick

On 31/10/16 13:48, Gregory Pittman wrote:
> 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