Creating Visual Guidelines for Xubuntu

[Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

On maanantai 30 heinäkuu 2012, Santiago Roland wrote:
> On 07/29/2012 06:16 AM, Eero Tamminen wrote:
> > On sunnuntai 29 heinäkuu 2012, Santiago Roland wrote:
> >> * Gmusicbruwser: Should be replaced by Banshee.
> > ...
> >> Maybe a retouched version of VLC should replace all video players
> >> around, Parole in this case.
> > 
> > It would help if these kind of proposals would be formulated
> > according to the selection criteria given in the Xubuntu Strategy
> > document.
> 
> I would be glad that someone point me in the right direction regarding
> topics like i mentioned. I did not know what specific steps to take

There's a proposed update to strategy document, this lists both
the old one and the new proposal side by side, for the part that
is relevant for new app decisions:
    http://strategydoc.knome.fi/seeds/

Unsuitable packages & package selection sections tell what things
can be considered to be added to Xubuntu (but I think the point about
C++ is irrelevant, it should be about disk usage increase, both due
to app *and* its deps, and RAM footprint when the app is running).


Target part:
	http://strategydoc.knome.fi/target/

Gives some additional criterias when considering which application
is more suitable for Xubuntu.  E.g. how well the application is
localized to the languages supported by Xubuntu desktop, not just
how well it otherwise integrates[1] to Xubuntu desktop.


[1] Qt apps, besides bringing in lots of unwanted deps, don't
    integrate as well to Gtk based desktop (themeing etc).
    At least that was the case few years ago.



> and please tell me if i'm in the wrong mailing list, i'll try to
> follow your instructions and avoid being off topic.

Others are better at answering this.  I'm not involved in decisions
about these, I've just contributed a bit to the strategy doc. :-)


> >> * Themes: Xubuntu should have a light theme by default and not
> >> trying to imitate Ubuntu ambiance theme or others, light themes
> >> are better for understanding, reading and it is well demonstrated
> >> that light themes are better for the understanding of the mind.
...
> I think it's ok asking for references, i'm a scientist myself so i
> should have cited my statements to clarify that. If you want to learn
> more about display color schemes, there are several studies about it
> (i mentioned because i often read articles like that, it is not just
> my opinion). I can point you to this article:
> 
> http://uxmovement.com/content/when-to-use-white-text-on-a-dark-background
> /
> 
> that states black text over white/shade of gray is better for reading.
>
> It has some biological reasons regarding the eye, but you can go
> deeper if you want

This isn't very good or much of a study.  Data is missing.

And I don't think Xubuntu uses anywhere full white on full black.


> Algo you can chech out this article:
> 
> http://www.laurenscharff.com/research/AHNCUR.html
> 
> That shows some good statistics in reaction time of reading something,
> and includes also different types of fonts.

This is proper research.  However, it's quite old, from 1997, when
displays were CRTs.

While the paper mentions that vision impairments affect RT, the study
itself included only people with very good (or corrected) vision.

And the results state that:
"In general these results suggest that there is no one foreground/background
 combination, font, or word style which leads to the fastest RT (i.e. best
 readability), but rather a designer must consider how each variable affects
 the other(s)."


> You can also check out this survey of color test:
> 
> http://www.laurenscharff.com/research/survreslts.html

Ok, this states clearly that:
  "in every color combination surveyed, the darker text on a lighter
   background was rated more readable than its inverse"

But the document also states that this (unlike above study?) concerns
primarily larger amounts of texts, sentences, not just words.

I.e. it's important for things like www-pages, document content etc.
which can have a lot of text.  For isolated interface elements like
buttons etc which have single words, there's no such clear differences
(it depends more on what font is used etc).


> and many of this results belong to website-oriented researches and
> surveys for they to have the best reception and the best readability.

Is there any newer (proper) study that would be done on normal LCDs
that everybody has nowadays?


> Everyday people do not work in a place like that, so the light (shade
> of gray) theme is more eye friendly and increases reaction times, help
> searching ans scanning in file managers, reading and people even apply
> this to webpages.
...
> But humans are very used to read black text in white background. I
> know that maybe a dark theme makes our machines look cooler, and
> hacker style, but that is for 15 minutes, or for watching a video...
> if you have to work on it and read, you will wish someone make a good
> light theme (with a subtle shade of gray instead of pure white)
> because you will be more productive. The dark theme should be equally
> well designed, but as a second choice, maybe asked during installation?


	- Eero