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UI labels hard to read


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One thing I've noticed while using Affinity Photo is despite using two 27" monitors, I find myself leaning in and squinting to read labels on tabs, particularly dimmed labels on inactive tabs. This might be alleviated somewhat by going to an 18% grey background instead of black and increasing the font size slightly. My eyesight close-in is still very good, but the constant squinting makes the interface uncomfortable to use.

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@mac_heibu

 

 

There is a big personal element in these things - the UI was one of the immediate "I like this" things for me.   I like the look and the lay-out.  About the only thing that irks is the Document feature.

Retina iMac (4K display, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) OS X 10.11.6  Capture One 10.

 

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The dark UI is fine **IF* I am in full screen and unified mode.

 

When in separated and not full screen, the ui is too dark and lacks contrast : the whiter background makes it difficult to read the UI. 

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No, billtils, "personal elements" never can be on the first place concerning UI design!

First of all, you have to make sure, that most of the users are able to handle the App. If this is not the case, something is definitively wrong.

Of course, you can build an app usable only for young, extremely sharp sighted people. You can …, but do you really want?

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I know what you mean mac_heibu, but have to disagree (at least a bit).  For example, a lot of people don't like Pixelmator because of its floating interface, but we see posts here from time to time extolling the virtues of the floating (undocked) tools panel.  OK, making these possible is an action of the UI creators, but whether or not someone uses docked or floating is a personal element.  And there are more ...

Retina iMac (4K display, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) OS X 10.11.6  Capture One 10.

 

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I don't talk about personal favorites, likes, dislikes or something like that.

I simply talk about that: "Does Affinity really want to exclude a very large amount of users from even being able to (fluently) handle the app?" If they want to – ok. Why not? They are the publisher and can do, what they like to do. But one should really be clearly concious about that.

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mac_heibu, I think the UI is okay for must users while there might be room for improvement for some users.
But I definitely don't feel like "a very large amount of users" dislike the UI or even can't handle it.

Some even prefer greyscale icons which are IMO much harder to identify.

And last but not least you can tweak the UI a little bit by increasing the font size in the Preferences etc. or scale down your screen resolution.

 

 

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Look at this forum: I bet, you can’t tell, that Affinity UI is of a higher readability than the text entries here.

The biggest mistake in my eyes however (not only done by Affinity) is the return of dark UIs.

I formerly said it in a different thread: We pioneers computer based graphic designers struggled a long, long time very hard to get one thing: Paperwhite displays (hello Atari, hello Calamus!). In Germany and within the European Community for example there are very clear governmental regulations about the maintenance of industrial health and safety – pointing out, that negative text should be avoided wherever it is possible. I understand, that fashion and coolness considerations obviously forbid to develop clear and crisp UIs. But if it isn’t even possible to offer negative and positive display rendering (what by the way Adobe does in most of its applications), then at least try to supply the highest possible contrast and allow bigger font sizes. The options within "Preferences" are definitely not sufficient.

Again: If you want to exclude a lot of possible users – do it, but tell us, that there are no further plans to meet the needs of people without perfect eyesight.

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I totally agree with the above posts.

I for one, am an oldy (70+) and of course my eyesight is not what it used to be.

 

I realize that in this industry the target consumers are the young ones, but hey, there are a lot of older people out there using computers nowadays.

 

And I presume that the development of this suite of programs is not just done for a short number of years only.

With  that in mind, it might be an idea to keep the future customers (and who will be, by that time, long term users) in mind as well.

 

So, pretty please, developers, jack up the contrast settings in preferences.

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Well, as I posted above, personal circumstances matter.  I'm 70+ and have no problems.  I'm sure there are several young things here who have had problems.  However, an issue has been identified and there is a reasonably simple fix - over to the engineers!

Retina iMac (4K display, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) OS X 10.11.6  Capture One 10.

 

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I'm one of the 70+ users who squints and peers and hunches over the screen in Affinity and other "dark and low contrast" apps and dreams of a UI as easy to read as this forum.  The dark UI is lovely but it's a pain to use.  There should be a choice of light or dark UI.  That way, everyone is happy and productive.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Independent of factors such as age and eyesight, it is my perspective that a user interface should be optimized for readability and ease of usage. White or (worse) grey letters or pictograms on a dark/black background do not fulfill this request. Not even colorful pictograms do.

 

As a user one should have at least the possibility to select which user interface suits her/him best. The reduction of the UI Gamma is no sufficient or satisfying "solution".

 

Therefore, I ask the developers at Affinity, please come up  with a UI which is directed at readability. Thanks!

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I agree with the other users.  The UI Gamma option is just too dark.  If your computer monitor has light behind it, the interface is very difficult to read without closing the window blinds.

 

Could you please increase the gamma range about 50%?

 

Thank you for your consideration

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  • 4 months later...

Increase Gamma, or provide back on white / white on black.

 

Please pity the users who are 50 years old or more. The sight is getting poorer, détails are lost (retina is great for youngster, but less valuable for me)  and contrast needs to be increased. 

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