Restore High Contrast Icons

[X.]

For those of you who haven't signed up yet, you should go and have a look at the Next Generation LabVIEW Features Technology Preview (a mouthful, but in short, it is a UI and Development Environment demonstration version of what NI is cooking up for future versions of LabVIEW). There are some cool things and some downright awful ones.

One of them has been sneaking its ugly neck in LabVIEW 2016: reduced contrast. I am (my eyes) getting tired of it. A few examples of the changes introduced in 2016 are shown below:

2015:

2016:

Considering that the trend is for displays to not increase that much in size but increase in resolution, we have now to factors to fight against: the reduction in size AND the reduction in contrast. I won't mention laptop displays going in economy mode and reducing their luminosity, but the point is that it is making LabVIEW even more difficult and unengaging to use. Way to go to loose any chance to attract new users, and run the risk to loose old timers due to added eye strain.

Put simply: Restore high contrast icons  and please, do not go ahead with the washed out IDE and UI objects showcased in Tech Preview.

[X.]

I was asked by NI (in a personal message) to explain why I felt the contrast was low, because the designers at NI basically don't believe there is an issue, or if there is one, this is one of display contrast settings, personal preference or whatever else, but not something that is related to the new design decision.

In other words, negative feedback is negative, it is not feedback.

At some point people vote. As far as LabVIEW is concerned, I guess "buy" (or don't in this case) is the equivalent.

Feedback all the same.

[James@Work]

Hey X,

Thank you for the information regarding NI's concern for your opinion.  I think LV developers have realized this and it may be the reason for so few kudos when the idea is about negative changes.

Based on your original post of this problem, I delayed moving to LV2016 but finally had to install it this week.  In addition to the washed out icons, I was disappointed by all the extra spacing added to the palettes; another change for the sake of change.  I don't expect NI to care, but posted my suggestion to eliminate the space or give us an option to set it back to condensed spacing.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I asked our designers to contact X (and other users) specifically because we did believe there was an issue. X provided details about his experience. After that, we re-evaluated our decision. We rechecked the colors on multiple monitors. We had people of various ages look at screenshots. And we tested the images with various pro tools built around surveys of large numbers of people to check for good contrast. The result: we decided to leave the colors as they stand.

We did not ignore X's feedback. We listened to the feedback and then made an informed decision. As much as possible, we try to make our decisions based on data, and this is where the data leads us. Any UI change that we make will help some users and hurt others. Our goal is to help more than we hinder. We know from experience that more negative opinions will tend to show up on online forums, and we take that into account, but we do try to accommodate as wide a range of users as possible.

In theory, we could create a Tools>>Options setting to cover this. It is software -- we can do anything. Doing so takes time away from other development projects. This would not be a simple color replace. Many of our images are pre-rendered resources, so we would need to code in ways to choose different images depending upon the setting. At this time, we do not believe this is a sufficiently wide-spread issue to warrant that investment.

We do listen to feedback, positive and negative. We are open to changing course when the data warrants.

For anyone else having this issue, please make sure your monitors are calibrated. The lower-contrast that LabVIEW is using is also used by many other programs, including the Windows OS, and calibrating your monitor may help with a wide-range of visibility issues. On Windows, you can search the start menu for "Calibrate display colors".

[X.]

Add to the list of friendly advices: go get your vision checked by an optometrist, buy a new pair of glasses, have an ergonomist come and redesign the lights in your office, drink some kool-aid...

[Manzolli]

There something looks odd to me, the Pi constant has a white background in the 2016 LabVIEW example below. In my 2016 it's like your 2015 example. Maybe there is something else going on?

---

@X. wrote:

For those of you who haven't signed up yet, you should go and have a look at the Next Generation LabVIEW Features Technology Preview (a mouthful, but in short, it is a UI and Development Environment demonstration version of what NI is cooking up for future versions of LabVIEW). There are some cool things and some downright awful ones.

One of them has been sneaking its ugly neck in LabVIEW 2016: reduced contrast. I am (my eyes) getting tired of it. A few examples of the changes introduced in 2016 are shown below:

2015:

2016:

Considering that the trend is for displays to not increase that much in size but increase in resolution, we have now to factors to fight against: the reduction in size AND the reduction in contrast. I won't mention laptop displays going in economy mode and reducing their luminosity, but the point is that it is making LabVIEW even more difficult and unengaging to use. Way to go to loose any chance to attract new users, and run the risk to loose old timers due to added eye strain.

Put simply: Restore high contrast icons  and please, do not go ahead with the washed out IDE and UI objects showcased in Tech Preview.

---

[wturnbul]

This a 1000 times this!!!

My eyeballs physically hurt.

[RavensFan]

wturnbul,

Just don't say you want it!  Actually click the Kudo Star next to the idea to register your vote.  That's how the Idea Exchange works.  Kudoes=votes.    More votes is attention to NI that that people want the idea.

[MichaelBalzer]

Digging this idea up again after stumbling upon this video from NI:

Spoiler

I know this video is for NXG, but it gives an insight from NI into the 'why' of the low contrast. Too much chrome. The UX design principle named "difference". Reducing noise and complexity. Reducing eye strain. And the bizarre comparison between LabVIEW and web browsers (and not other IDEs or graphics packages).

"We rechecked the colors on multiple monitors. We had people of various ages look at screenshots. And we tested the images with various pro tools built around surveys of large numbers of people to check for good contrast."

So were any of these people developers, LabVIEW or otherwise? Did the surveys require the user to look at the images for 40 hours a week? Did they have to perform repeated Where's Wally type tasks and find pieces of info on a block diagram? Were they shown video and asked to track block diagram elements as they moved around the screen? Or do the UX team think LabVIEW developers just look at pictures all day?

"As much as possible, we try to make our decisions based on data, and this is where the data leads us."

The data is wrong, or at best incomplete. It's a complex series of interactions, so to reduce it to a single data point is really missing the larger picture.

I'm sure this little rant won't sway NI (60+ kudos hasn't), but having used the low contrast variant for a solid year now, it is still very much noticeable for the wrong reasons. I really do enjoy developing with (and not just looking at) LV2015 much more.

[wiebe@CARYA]

I'm missing the relevance between gray UI and gray Icons.

On the UI we make important part stick out, by making the rest gray. So on the diagram, we made everything gray(er). I don't follow.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

MichaelBalzer We do on-going and extensive UI testing with LV users under as many conditions as we can. At this time, we believe our methodology is correct, and we stand by our research findings.