Layer states - usability and accessibility - select/hide/show icons

[Bit Disappointed]

Designer 2.4.0 (2222), macOS

The low contrast ratio plus the unfathomably small size of these three small icons makes them inaccessible, i.e. not visible enough for the elderly or people with visual impairments. They must appear to be dot-sized on high-resolution screens. The Select icon is particularly small.

It is also unhelpful and wrong that icons/buttons that can be used are so grey that they appear as functions that cannot currently be used because Serif wants them to appear white when clicked. See here from Photoshop how the default is for usable and non-usable functions:

When you hover these buttons in Photoshop they are highligthed with a darker background instead:

 

I assume that the varying and incorrect font sizes and the problems with parts of the letters being cut off at the bottom are on the Serif to do list.

 

[bbrother]

3 hours ago, Bit Arts said:

The low contrast ratio plus the unfathomably small size of these three small icons makes them inaccessible, i.e. not visible enough for the elderly or people with visual impairments. They must appear to be dot-sized on high-resolution screens. The Select icon is particularly small.

The low contrast ratio between the panel's background and other elements such as buttons, drop-down lists, icons, input fields is already a serious problem occurring generally throughout the application especially after the interface changes in V2. In V1, thanks to the shaded edges that gave the effect of embossing, the contrast was not the best, but it was not as much of a problem as after the changes in V2.

 

3 hours ago, Bit Arts said:

It is also unhelpful and wrong that icons/buttons that can be used are so grey that they appear as functions that cannot currently be used because Serif wants them to appear white when clicked.

I don't particularly see anything wrong with the icons being gray. This is a common practice with dark interface themes. This is again a contrast issue between normal, disabled, active, hover state.

 

3 hours ago, Bit Arts said:

When you hover these buttons in Photoshop they are highligthed with a darker background instead

You've probably already noticed that in Affinity the background of some icons also changes when you hover. But not sure why this is not applied to all icons only selectively without consistency.  When it comes to font size, font line height in input fields, padding, margins, alignment of elements, there are also many shortcomings. But I think you know all this because I noticed from your comments that you have experience in the topic of UI design. I also have a couple of years of experience in this matter myself, and I catch all these mistakes right away.

 

[Bit Disappointed]

10 hours ago, bbrother said:

You've probably already noticed that in Affinity the background of some icons also changes when you hover. But not sure why this is not applied to all icons only selectively without consistency.  When it comes to font size, font line height in input fields, padding, margins, alignment of elements, there are also many shortcomings. But I think you know all this because I noticed from your comments that you have experience in the topic of UI design. I also have a couple of years of experience in this matter myself, and I catch all these mistakes right away.

I have 14 years of experience alone working on projects where it has been a standing and absolute requirement that absolutely nothing is sent on to development or production or similar without being designed and approved by user experience designers. Before that, usability specialists were also involved, but now they are embedded in every project I'm involved in or interact with. This makes our product easy to use and results in very few returns. That alone is a lot of money and time saved.

I work with them, have lunch with them, evaluate with them, drink beer with them, discuss with them, witness their user tests, see their tools, methods and work processes. I stay close to them because I remember when they weren't there and the end products could not match the quality and usability we get today. Shivers. One thing I've noticed about them is that they are the most instinctively good listeners among my many colleagues and the least likely to isolate themselves in front of a screen under stress. Their task is to understand. Not to claim or assume.

And in addition to everything I've had to repeat in this forum too many times, they work just as methodically as the developers they work closely with. And I can reveal that all developers I've worked with have loved working with UXers because it gives them very clear recipes and architecture to work from, documentation, principles, style guides, consistency, order, processes, professionalism, and the product becomes easily maintainable just like with good coding principles. Everyone wins! And most importantly of all, these developers - and especially their leaders - say that through these specialists they gain knowledge about the customers' requirements for the product, knowledge about how it is used, in general a lot of knowledge they would otherwise not have. I would never hire anyone without that attitude. The company hasn't either. They do not want to be associated with poor quality and recruit directly to ensure that all employees understand that the company thrives on understanding.

The first beta of layer states gives me so many indications of what Serif lacks and what they're not doing in their work, that I can hardly believe it. Had it been a proof of concept, I would have been more at ease, but no.

Then you might ask yourself whether customers would object to the fact that the product developed according to the methods we work from is easier to use, more consistent, more accessible, contains fewer contrast errors and puzzles, and is intuitive to work with. Of course they don't.

The path to professionalism goes through professionalism.

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Layer states Select and Options icons are hard to see due to small size") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AF-1758). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.