[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #12586: Lighten up the admin header and footer

[WordPress Trac]

#12586: Lighten up the admin header and footer
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 Reporter:  jane            |       Owner:                   
     Type:  task (blessed)  |      Status:  new              
 Priority:  normal          |   Milestone:  3.0              
Component:  UI              |     Version:                   
 Severity:  normal          |    Keywords:  header, has-patch
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Changes (by jeremyclarke):

 * cc: jer@… (added)


Comment:

 I'm with dd32 in thinking the current shades are problematic and can
 definitely be improved by changing the brightness to match the rest of the
 UI.

 The gradient in the site header should match the ones in the screen
 options tabs and widget headers. They are too similar to not match IMHO.

 After this first commit the header is much lighter than the other
 gradients which actually makes it seem less important. In theory we could
 change the other gradients to be lighter than they currently are but that
 seems like the wrong direction to go in. Making the header a bit darker
 feels a lot better to me, more solid or something, and it won't look empty
 on low-contrast screens.

 I created a darker version of the background graphic including making the
 white line a light grey instead (lighter than the lightest part of the
 gradient). Attached as [darker]admin-header-footer.png

 Also attached is a screenshot of how the darker gradient looks ( darker-
 gradient-screenshot.png ). I think it matches the existing gradients
 pretty well and captures the intent of the original design, which can be
 seen here compared with the current header and another option in this
 image by john: http://twitpic.com/16mf3n/full

 '''THAT SAID:''' I am against this mid-grey scheme entirely. The header
 should be a dark grey gradient to match active sidebar headings.

 IMHO the header should not be the same color as the screen options and
 dashboard widgets (as well as the post metaboxes and visual editor() which
 share the same gradients), instead it should match the active sidebar
 section header (i.e. Dashboard for dashboard screen) as shown in the
 middle example above.

 The medium grey gradient is overused in this design and the overall effect
 is mushy and low-contrast, everything blends together and seems made of
 the same plastic. Having the dark header makes it stand out more,
 bracketing the rest of the UI. I think the high-contrast of the old header
 is one of it's virtues, and I always liked the way it integrated (even
 though now I admit that it's color doesn't match anything else). FWIW I
 also think the pure-white favorites menu feels very strange and not
 button-like, it feels like a text field. With a dark grey gradient we'd be
 free to use some light grey UI for the favorites menu, preferably the
 light button style from Save Draft.

 This medium-grey approach is also a big change from the old version. Sure
 its nicer than the 2.9 style, but the amount of difference will be
 upsetting to users for no good reason. If we used the dark grey of the
 sidebar headings then the change will be much more subtle and ultimately
 no one will complain at all. We will just have rebalanced the colors so
 that they are more harmonious (and added a good-looking gradient and fun
 logo in the process).

 If you look at that twitpic comparison ( http://twitpic.com/16mf3n/full )
 of the old->dark->light versions I think the middle one is pretty
 convincing. I'll try to work up a full screenshot to compare the full
 pages with dark and light gradients in the header and footer.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12586#comment:27>
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