Black outline around 'Pale Moon' icon

[ben557]

A black outline around the 'Pale Moon' icon will look good!

[Moonchild]

Sorry, but I disagree.

[ben557]

Ok, thanks for considering. I like to use black outlines in GUIs.

[ben557]

I must bump this topic because I believe I have sufficient substantiation. Though aesthetically, I understand why black outlines seem irrelevant; however, you must consider how the radiance projected by LCDs may often bleed over imagery given variable observation positions -- people may tilt their head in a way which is unconciously optimized for a task regarding one area about the screen, but not another (like the obnoxiously bright (even on BLACK color-personalization) Windows 7 taskbar buttons). That's why I believe being regular about contrasting elements (i.e. black outlines rather than invert-outlines or toned outlines!) is important for GUI clarity; it's not a mere aesthetic choice. For non GUI purposes -- fine, do whatever you wish.

By the way, I have 20/20 vision and a fair quality LCD monitor (can be better & expensive, but it's not bad).

That's all I'll argue. If you still don't agree, that's alright.

[Moonchild]

I still disagree

I don't really care how much theoretical "evidence" you want to put behind it - most of what you say is actually up for debate, too - thick black outlines is simply something that belongs in comic books. If you have trouble seeing icons without thick/black outlines, maybe you should set your monitor to more sane values for brightness and contrast?

Also, if it was that compelling of an argument and that big of a deal, how come that of the 40 or so different icons I have in my OS GUI right now, absolutely none have such an outline?

[ben557]

I used to keep my monitor at 35% brightness. That's very low, so I brought it back to 75% brightness after 6 months, but whatever. It also depends on my desktop-wallpaper.

Other possible reasons:
1. large radiant area (large monitor) diminishes contrast severely (so even if you had a white desktop, maybe on smaller monitors, 90% of the area being white isn't such a problem)
2. my tallness and monitor which cannot be adjusted to be high enough unless I tilt it upwards or I lower my chair uncomfortably near the floor. It's almost good enough, but not enough for peripheral areas, as the windows taskbar is located. I must crunch my back to look near the screen's lower half for consistent clarity. =(

Also, if it was that compelling of an argument and that big of a deal, how come that of the 40 or so different icons I have in my OS GUI right now, absolutely none have such an outline?

I was wondering about that, and I've thought it's only because most developers are apathetic about small tweaks. I'm usually a perfectionist, though especially when developing user interfaces. I thought I'd try to ask here, since I've had this opportunity.

Also, I like having my Windows 7 theme at a tone which is somewhat near the Pale Moon icons' tone. Windows 7 Aero dynamics add rediculous brightness behind task bar icons, which makes it important for black or a dark color somewhere in the icons to contrast.

Most importantly: Black is black, so it adds maximal contrast for maximal visual clarity. I like visual clarity and global discernability (i.e. discretization gradients in tone-scheme for divisive purposes) in GUI's regardless whether there are perceptive/hardware issues. Huzzah!

thick black outlines is simply something that belongs in comic books.

Woah! Not thick black outlines. ALWAYS 1 pixel. Also, if you observe old UI color schemes, notice how designers used value plus saturation-tints to add more discernability and clarity. For this, there tended to be a biege/silver binary. Consequentially, if you grayscale a screenshot from 2000s' GUIs, they will flatten significantly. They also used anti-aliasing conservatively. Smart people

In many situations, never use black outlines. These forum emoticons demonstrate why and pose a situation where black outlines will certainly be worse than toned outlines.

In customizability settings, many GUI artists used to go for icons with color schemes which worked universally, in collective, regardless about how they were composited with other visual content. Providing an icon with small color variation only makes sense when regarding hierarchical subordinance. Though, hierarchical subordinance is often known when application-resident icons are designed, and can be implied for most GUI elements. This is not the case for application icons, however.

I'm still arguing. I promised I wouldn't. Dammit