How To Make Tool Icons More Visible

[Tony Johansen]

The very small gray icons on black background are almost impossible for me to see with my eyes. Is there a way to make them black on a white background? Or increase contrast and make then white on black. This is a usability issue that will affect many people with disabilities. Please add an option to the preferences. It is incredibly unfair to not consider people with disabilities. I know dark themes are popular at the moment, but there are many of us who have great difficulty with them.

[Dan C]

Hi Tony Johansen,

Welcome to the forums

I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with the UI - unfortunately we don't currently have a Light UI for the iPad version, this has been requested previously and is something our developers are considering, as we're aware that certain users struggle with dark themes.

We do have a Monochromatic UI option that may help you, if you open Affinity and select the Cog (Settings) icon in the top right of the app, then navigate to the Interface tab, here you can tick Monochromatic iconography. With this setting enabled, press done and open one of your documents, does this help with visibility for you?

[Tony Johansen]

On 11/18/2019 at 8:34 PM, Dan C said:

Welcome to the forums

We do have a Monochromatic UI option that may help you

Thank you for the welcome. I invested in Photo and Designer, in the hope that Publisher will get to the iPad before Adobe brings InDesign. However, Photoshop on iPad, despite many limitations, does have a dark theme/light theme preference choice and the interface is a pleasure to use compared to the Affinity apps. I do prefer the capability you guys offer with your iPad apps, but this interface issue is significant. Your apps are good enough for me to try and give detailed feedback in the hope that you guys fix the problem. It is an issue that is making me put on hold my desktop purchase of the apps, because I may need to abandon the Affinity experiment if the interface continues to be difficult to use on the iPad. Ultimately I have to choose between you guys and Adobe. Adobe is slowly being dragged to the iPad kicking and screaming, but Illustrator arrives next year, and hopefully InDesign soon after that. It seems that you guys have 12 to 18 months of having the iPad to yourselves, but as soon as Illustrator and InDesign are here, things like interface options are going to matter in customer choices. Get it right and you will own the space because few of us like Adobe and the infamous subscription model. Get it wrong and guys like me will continue to bitch about the subscription but still use Adobe.

The Monochromatic UI makes very little difference. The problem is the use of darkish gray tints against a black background has very little contrast. Some of the icons are easier to read than others. A black background with white and light gray would probably be okay, however the ease of seeing the icons in this forum form is brilliant as an example of what is ideal. Everything here is a pleasure to use, but the app is a nightmare when it comes to tool selection. It is so bad I am surprised that a disabilities organisation hasn’t tried to sue you already. They are getting more assertive world wide in attempting to get developers to consider disability usability in interface design, and I have seen action taken, especially in Europe over this issue in the last 12 months. Affinity is probably the worst app I have ever used in this regard. You perhaps don’t realize just how difficult your app icons are to read for those with less than perfect vision and older age eyes. The biggest problem is that app designers tend to be very young, and with good vision, and they seem to think that because they can read something, then everyone else can too. I would argue that a higher contrast option for the interface icons and possibly a light theme option should be a priority.

[DM1]

11 hours ago, Tony Johansen said:

You perhaps don’t realize just how difficult your app icons are to read for those with less than perfect vision and older age eyes. 

I agree. This issue has been raised many times since the apps release. A lighter interface, or simply brighter tool icons, have been requested in the Features thread. Unfortunately there appears to be little action on Serifs part, which is disappointing. Turning up the iPads screen brightness helps but is not good for eyes when spending hours on the app. 
So easy to fix too. Just change from Grey to white icons.

 

[Tony Johansen]

4 hours ago, DM1 said:

I agree. This issue has been raised many times since the apps release.
So easy to fix too. Just change from Grey to white icons.

 

Thank you, good to see that there are others raising this issue, but sad to see that young sharp-eyed UI designers don’t think there is an issue, because their sharp eyes do not see a problem. Haven’t they done any UX research with older, and vision impaired artists? If their UX was conducted using only people 20 to 50 years old without any vision impairment maybe it did not reveal this problem. I am 64 and at my age this is a real issue, and, News Flash, artists don’t stop being artists just because they are a bit beyond 30. They can design an easy to read interface here on the forums where it doesn’t matter so much, why can’t they make an easy to read interface for the app where it matters a great deal.

 

yes, just swapping the grey for white, or a very light gray would be a quick solution, but probably even quicker would be just making the tool bar background white. We aren’t talking about man-years of development work to make a huge difference, more like a few hours or days if testing is needed, and there is plenty of room in the preferences pane for a simple light/dark option to keep everyone happy.

[gary danang]

Finally using AD for some commercial work and now using the interface intensely and have numerous frustrations

the subtle colour differences between tools selected or not is really stupid.. for an industry that primary objective is legibility the UI sucks

 

one small sample of a widespread ui problem...

the edit all layers button ,,, is it on of off? 

I have played with all the UI Preference setting , this was the best I could get

[DM1]

17 hours ago, gary danang said:

the edit all layers button ,,, is it on of off? 

In the bottom image it is on. Disappointing to see desktop has similar issues though.
If you want a solution, you should probably post in the desktop area as this is thread is specific to iPad versions

[CRWillow]

I have just moved to Affinity and I too am having a hard time with the interfacing. I was using a old gray in Illustrator and Photoshop and find the light view in AD and AP nearly useless to see. Brushes are so tiny ans white on gray. The dark view isn't great either.  Misery must like company because I was glad to know it wasn't just me, sad to know nothing is going to be done. REALLY hope someone with some clout reads some of these posts.

[Gerald Vowles]

I just downloaded the iPad Designer app. I had decided to switch to All Affinity From Adobe for my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro but I quite literally can’t see the toolbar/tools Even when squinting, maxing screen brightness, etc. so have to change my mind which is very unfortunate. With all the complaints I can’t grasp why this appears to be the biggest issue with an otherwise great package but Serif won’t budge???

[elkman28]

I too have just purchased Affinity Designer for iPad for my new iPad Air 4th Gen device to complement Photo, Designer and Publisher that b I have on my Win 10 PC. For pity’s sake! I just spent an hour trying to workout how to use it becauseI couldn’t see what icons showed.

Come on guys. I worked in a industry with strict rules about minimum font sizes and colours for visual comms applied and defined what user interfaces should look like for projects I worked on. I’d have rejected these straight away, especially having already got the art of the possible nailed for my PC!! So why, take a 180 degree turn for the ipad?

 

Could do better... much better! Development cost? Max £K30? 

[Normando]

I also wish that the tools in Photo V2 were larger, however, they are now multi-color and much easier to see. The secret: they only "turn on" when you bring up a project -- even just a blank page -- to work on. Otherwise they're gray and hard to see. I'm still not quite sure how the interface works but some of that is the difference between American and British (UK?) terminology and some of Affinity's own terms.

[Kobold]

Almost not visible what tool you are actually using, with Designer 2 on ipad. Turning a dark grey into a black with almost no big difference, is simply stupid and not user friendly. Same about this for options in upper toolbar like magnetic and all other buttons. Why not let the users choose this color, give it a blue instead of black, or let us users set the grey to our needs.

want to repeat that I find that Serif is very very user unfriendly, ignoring needed changes, not even reacting on any words here in forum, and just insisting on own decisions. 
 

Serif decided to make active buttons black on (almost black) dark grey, instead of finding a true visible solution. The very very small blue line on Designer 1 was also not good, and now it even got worse.

 

Now many of you double check the tool buttons when working on iPad, or also on Mac or PC? Is it really necessary leaving us with such workflow braking settings? Give us options, we can set up ourselves, that should be easy to be done. Or bring back the lue lines and make them wider better visible.

[Kobold]

Btw it is the same story with Affinity apps since years, .... update 2.1 is announced, ......  with new features, but problems do not get fixed, as I can see in beta version. For example bleed settings, options, .... document settings .......   nope! 
 

New options, new buttons, new stuff ....  seems as this is the only thing interesting the Affinity guys!

Do fix the obvious missing points, not working options, and from many users wanted  options like finally visible active tools and buttons, bleed settings .....  and when all this is done, and the users are happy, ....  then you may bring new stuff!

What is more important? App working fine and happy users? Or not happy users and more new options often just bringing more new problems? Think about that!

 

[Bobby Gordon]

Hello to all Affinity friends.

I just returned to Affinity after a year or two, so I jumped from 1 to 2.4. I too was upset that the tool icons were almost invisible. I tried every which way to tweak the UI. Then I saw the message here from Normando above Posted January 15, 2023

and I felt very foolish. He's right. When you put something on the board, the tools light up!

However, the others commenting here have a point. The tool icons were bigger and brighter in Af Photo 1. and they were easy to use. So it made no sense to make them smaller and less prominent.

Cheers to all from Bobby Gordon

 

[Kobold]

But still I can not understand why the visibility of the tool icons, within an app that is made for productivity, a work horse for many users, ..... is some kind of limited by such "stupid" and not logical decisions, making these icons almost invisible, and so hard to see, if an option is switched on or off. Yes, this is stupid, cause it is a decision that is making app harder to use, often you have to double check, etc. etc. .....   

If I build a tool for users, I make this tool as easy to use, as possible. Period! Here this is just not the case. Why not giving us an option for settings for all the icons? That should be way easy to be done. So every user can make his own settings, may be choose own colors ....   not to be fancy, but to get visibility ... what should be normal and standard in such an app!