UI colors and visibility of elements

[Luminara]

You can minimize the chat window by clicking the little 🔻 in the top right corner, and maximize it by clicking on the 🔺on the top right of the chat line border... but the damn thing is the same color as the interface.  I damn near had a heart attack when I accidentally clicked it a few minutes ago and couldn't, despite being a veteran player, remember how to restore the chat window.

 

That's when I realized that this kind of thing has been REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING for a really long time.

 

Those little buttons to dock/undock windows.  The scroll bar on the map or in the Options window.  All of the interactive widgets are the same color as the rest of the interface.  Which means they're either easily missed, or almost goddamn invisible.

 

 

See what I mean?  See how well that blends in with the rest of the window?  See how easily it's overlooked?  See how frustrating that is?  I wasn't even trying to click it, I just twitched and suddenly my chat window as a single line, and I'm reaching for the toilet paper and nitroglycerine pills.

 

And look at the scroll bar.  That tiny blue slider blends in with the rest of the window too well.  They all do.

 

This has subconsciously bothered me for 20 years, and now that I'm in my 50's, squinting at the screen through a pair of 1.5x reading glasses with smudges, stray cat hair and specks of dirt on the lenses, it's starting to consciously get on my nerves.  I have to hunt for every damn widget.

 

Hey, here's a radical idea that no-one in the history of computing has ever considered: do something to make them stand out.  Set the color to contrast with the UI or window color.  Or increase the contrast or gamma.  Put a thick black line around them.  Fucking hire Clippy to jump out and annoy the player when they pass the pointer over them.

 

Something.

 

Anything.

[megaericzero]

The GUI could definitely use a fresh pass. Visual hierarchy and sensibilities have advanced since 2004 for sure.

 

Quick question in regards to the anecdote: /wdwload?

Edited August 31 by megaericzero

[Luminara]

11 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

Quick question in regards to the anecdote: /wdwload?

 

I don't think I've ever saved on any of my characters, so squinting and making less than cordial observations regarding the parentage of 1990's-era UI designers was my Plan A.

 

And Plan B.