• When: Thursdays @ 3:00-4:00 PM PST
• Where: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Beaumont/148/155/46/

Beyond very mild myopia I have no vision problems, however I for one can't use Dazzle at all without getting headaches, and I'm told I'm not alone. The health issues that must be considered when designing user interfaces are nothing new and are well documented. People have been studying this stuff since at least the 1950s, and while computer interfaces may have evolved the human vision system has not.

There are two main issues here, the chosen colour combinations, and the contrast between the world environment and the user interface.

1) Colour Selection

It is well known that blue text on a blue background is hard to read and causes eyestrain. Just do a Google search for "blue text on a blue background" if you don't believe me. This is in fact a commonly exploited trick for hiding the small print on contracts, relying on the fact that the human eye focuses blue in front of the retina rather than on its surface, causing blue to fade into the background. Where the existing interface does use blue text, it's counterbalanced with a black or grey background of sufficient contrast for it not to be a big problem.

2) Environmental Contrast

This is the big one, and also well documented; there is however a trip-wire here when designing virtual world interfaces. The literature talks about two types of contrast firstly between the screen and the room, and secondly between the user interface elements, windows etc. and the screen background. However in a virtual world the priority is reversed; the primary focus is the world environment, the UI windows are the background information even though they sit on top of it. During Second Life night time, it makes sense to reduce the light level in your room to prevent eyestrain, however with Dazzle this now makes it worse. While looking at in world content the eye is prevented from adapting to the light level of what you are focusing on by the bright UI elements in your peripheral vision. In some ways a greater analogue exists with something like car instrumentation, rather than with existing computer UIs; most car manufacturers now provide a dimmer to allow the driver to adjust the dashboard illumination both for comfort and so as not to affect their night vision.

This is not just aesthetics, there are definite QA issues here that need to be addressed in an objective fashion, rather that just asking "does it look cool?" (personally I think the look of Dazzle is somewhere about 1995). When assessing a user interface you need to see it from the point of view of the user. While the designers are probably sat in a typical office environment with light levels in excess of 500-1000 lux, the majority of users are sat at home with typical light levels around 50-100 lux. Go in to the office at night, turn the lights off and then see how comfortable it is to use.

While the existing colour scheme may not be considered particularly exciting or "cool", it is in fact pretty good from a health point of view, especially for those of us that work in world for extended periods and during RL night. Its neutral colour scheme ensures a safe contrast level during both SL day and night. I can understand the fact that the Second Life viewer is seen as a product and there is a perceived need to connect with new users, using a bright engaging UI as a hook, but that's no good when your retention rate drops due to increased levels of user fatigue. The fact is the product is the world itself, a bright and busy UI will just detract from that.

There is a tendency among UI designers generally to think it's all about the UI elements and making them look great and eye-catching (it's all right there in the name - Dazzle), I'm sorry, but that's just plain wrong. A UI should be as seamless and transparent to the user as possible, it is the background to the content, not the other way round. The way forward is to provide a user interface that adapts and grows with the user, providing more visible obvious help and hand-holding to the new user while fading into the background for the experienced resident, allowing the large buttons with text across the bottom to be reduced to an icon palette in the corner for example, and first and foremost to allow the user to choose a colour scheme that suits them and their local environment.

I didn't set out to write an academic paper on ergonomics and virtual environments (though if someone wants to give me a research grant ... If you've read this far, I'm impressed, if you go and read the references at the end, I'll be even more impressed I don't want to be a fly in the ointment, I'm not writing this to be obstructive, Please don't dismiss this as another "Linden Lab never get anything right" or "I'm afraid of change" rant. I am enthusiastic and passionate about Second Life and it's future, I can see that there is a recognition of past mistakes and a desire to change things for the better within the Lab, and I am contributing this to help, not hinder.

Most things that come up on JIRA are bugs and irritations that in the grand scheme of things don't really matter (not to belittle anyone's pet issue but this is about peoples health. I'm not saying my opinion means any more than anyone else's, but many people are going to be blind to the potential consequences of getting this wrong, and will just look at Dazzle and go "Ooooh, shiny, me like!", then wonder why they're getting more migraines than they used to without making the connection.

References

http://www.fast-consulting.com/color/cp_toc.htm If you read nothing else, read this. Lots of useful information and a comprehensive list of references.

Ergonomics in Computerized Offices By E. Grandjean published by CRC Press. Latest edition is I think 2002, but there's a preview of the 1987 edition online at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4WxYmAzo9uYC&printsec=frontcover

"but many people are going to be blind to the potential consequences of getting this wrong" ... no pun intended

The color scheme as is is as far as SL things go, almost perfect!

What does NOT work is that the windows still don't all properly remember their size and position currently. Windows need to be able to be "docked" so they stay and size when the SL window is resized and the center of the videwport can then be adjustted to the center of the viewable area (as an option). Look at the lastest versions of Photoshop for a a great docking window paradigm.

Therea re so many things that COULD be improved, but the UI colors and icons are not even clsoe to one of the necessities, besides that, Dazzle as it is is completely the wrong direction! Aimee nailed it, no need to reeat other than to add my vote to everything said.

Since there are now more viewer choices for the users, having a color choice option should also be something that should be considered in future viewer updates...

Users should be able to more than just personalize their Avatars, other inworld content... Having a viewer that they can add their own individuality to would be a great addition ... Just saying!! Peace everyone!

_{♥ LadyJane ♥}

A color choice aside from "you can edit the xml yourself!" should be made readily accessible. It is not very easy for a casual user to edit an entire color scheme by themselves without having some kind of GUI to help out.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Skinning_HowTo/Basics

Thraxis was awesome and made a darker skinned version of Dazzle, and I've contributed a port of the 1.19 skin myself. Hopefully those'll be easier on your eyes.

if there will be no option to choose "old" UI or some black/white UI im ready to leave SL.

everything is about habit, but this is extreme...

Please make it so that UI color editing and/or themes are available before this gets rolled out.

Also, the problem that was started when the old IM tab blink was replaced with the blink-blink-glow is now made even worse by the fact that the user is left attempting to differentiate between two very light, very similar shades of blue in an attempt to tell whether there's a new IM in that tab or not. At a glance, I've found it impossible to make the distinction, and have to focus directly on it or just check the tab to discern, which is unfortunately poor UI design, as the aesthetic impedes function.

If this UI is going to be made into a release, the users must, and I stress must, be given a means to select a less eye-straining color scheme (option for "classic" versus "dazzle" color scheme in preferences, for example).

The new UI functionality I like, but the color scheme is a mark against it. Please allow users to retain the older, more comfortable colors while keeping the new UI design.

(1) color blindness and color contrast/Eye strain: (also VWR-6451):

In tests, the Dazzle palette does pass software color blindness tests... in other tests of legibility, the palette is weak on foreground/background contrast. We have been designing revisions to the color to address that issue.

In upcoming Release Candidate 1.20 RC2, look for tweaked improvements to the opacity of background colors in the menu; and highlight colors TitleBarFocusColor, ScrollSelectedBGColor, and MenuItemHighlightBgColor.

Also we are correcting a regression bug to the intended colors of TextBgReadOnlyColor, IMHistoryBgColor, and ScriptBgReadOnlyColor. These slipped out of RC0 and RC1.

These are improvements to contrast & legibility; however the look & feel of the Release Candidate does retain Dazzle in version 1.20.

(2) reverting to a Classic look

Let's continue to track that feature in VWR-5059. Briefly: We do plan to ship Viewer 1.20 with the lighter look and feel of Dazzle. It will become the default UI offered by Linden Lab (but not a mandatory upgrade). We believe this fits with our roadmap to make many improvements to the viewer and its User interface - documented at https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Roadmap. In keeping with the creative nature of Second Life, however, we of course aim to improve the User Interface in ways which equally open the same customization to the Open Source community, Solution Providers, and any resident.

Project Dazzle was an important pioneer of what was needed in the code in order to expose previously "hard-coded" settings and art. We have documented this customizability on the wiki (link noted in McCabe's comment above). As the Roadmap shows, we plan to enhance this in future generations of Skinning to dramatically improve the widget language of the SL viewer, and make this all possible from inside the viewer. This won't be ready in Version 1.20 however; there is a lot of engineering and testing work to be done.

In the meantime, Residents have already generated custom colors which change Viewer 1.20 to a nearly identical look & feel of 1.19.1. These are installed in less than a few minutes. Elle Pollack and SignpostMarv Marvin have done the great thing to start organizing these:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Viewer_Skins

I have enjoyed experimenting with them, and really like the derivative works as well! Please try them out, if only to post here (for others) what elements of the other skins affect your individualized experience with the palette, comfort, and enjoyability of the UI – for the ways that you use Second Life.

There seems to be a perception with some Linden staff I have spoken to that "it takes a day or so to get accustomed to the new look then people grow to like it and it doesn't cause the eye strain etc." I can assure you that is pure wishful thinking, it's not about learning to like it, this is a physiological problem not an aesthetic one; the fundamental flaws in the choice of palette and the physical effects thereof do not change with time.

While most users technically competent enough to participate in JIRA discussion will find being forced to manually install a third party skin nothing more than a few minutes irritation, many will see this as a unilateral imposition and dictatorial governance. In saying that I am not expressing my own feeling, simply warning of the avoidable PR trap that is about to be walked into. As can be seen from some of the unfortunate backlash against WindLight (which I think Pastrami has been managing admirably) mostly through misunderstanding, a lot of users are barely able to open the preferences window, let alone replace XML files.

First Looks and RCs are about getting feedback from residents, the overwhelming feedback on this is that it is not fit for release and yet it is being treated with band-aids simply because it has too much momentum. I understand that people are eager to move forwards but it would be a shame to see public feeling tainted against the project as a whole by fumbling the release of the first stage.

Reverting the colour scheme until skinning is available is 20 man-hours work or less. You would do your PR case an awful lot of good at this stage by showing some strong leadership at a time when LL is looking weak through other issues, and someone taking the hard decision to put the colour scheme on hold till it can be made optional. Say the decision has been made by listening to resident opinion and take advantage of the popularity that will bring. No one is asking for the project to be abandoned, the underlying work behind it is extremely important, just that it not be pushed through when it is clearly not ready.

Release the new colour scheme as an increase in choice alongside the existing one and you will be applauded, impose it unnecessarily and suffer, it's as simple as that.

Asking people to download and install 3rd party xml files is simply too much to ask from non-tech savvy users. Please delay 1.20 until skinning is fully functional. There is no rush.

As it is, It feels like this issue is being driven by somebody's ego more than by customer requirements.

i) allowing the user to change the skin (i.e. VWR-5059)
ii) including a skin based on the current scheme as well as the new scheme in the viewer (i.e. not entirely rely on the user having to install a third party skin to allow this)
iii) that the palette chosen for the Dazzle skin has serious problems from a psychological point of view

I would suggest that before 1.20 goes live, LL should

i) implement VWR-5059
ii) abandon the Dazzle scheme, and work on two new schemes one light and one dark, taking into account the physiological issues as well as aesthetic issues

I second Aimee's suggestion above asking for evidence of user testing. Having worked in the field of psychophysics and color science for several years, my experience would suggest that you sponsor some external reasearch to help you evaluate the quality of the new UI scheme. A properly designed randomized double blind study using unbiased subjects (external of Linden Lab's influence) could compare the new design to the old in usability tests. Given the difficulties and discomfort I have experienced with Dazzle and considering the level of outcry by the user community, I find it difficult to assume such an approach to testing has been completed.

Expanded the title to match the release notes of 1.20 RC3, which oddly marks this as fixed.

Respectfully, the last point is, IMHO, a pretty serious design flaw that underlays the other problems: an excellent user interface is one that lets you do what you want with minimum interference, minimum user effort, and minimum visibility. The job of the SL viewer is to allow users to interact with the virtual world as immersively as possible... anything that draws attention to the UI distracts from the World.

Have you ever drag'n' dropped an item in the dazzle inventory? You drag it, and this moment the inventory goes transparent... and you cant see at all where you are going to drag it... this is RIDICULOUS.

Fix the colors. Or switch off window transparency by default.

And black on white inventory is totally unusable anyway. I cant find anything anymore... I just dont see the stuff in that color set. (((((

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5059?focusedCommentId=66543#action_66543