try to limit contrast in colors

[Ekleog]

Design Feature Request

(sorry for both the tone of this issue and for not following the template, the reaction at #468 (comment) makes me want to not spend a minute more than strictly needed to convey information, given I'm going under the assumption it'll be closed non-sequitur)

Rant about the current site and my inability to actually read the text in a reasonable amount of time is available at #468 (comment).

Issue: The text is so small and un-contrasted that reading it is hard.

Ideas:

• Decrease the contrast between background colors compared to the contrast between background and foreground colors
• Decrease the font size/impact of titles compared to the main text font size/impact

Overall, the proposal in #468 is, to me, much more readable.

[lbolla]

There seem to be no semantic associated with colors either. E.g. blue is used in the second banner ("Build it in Rust"), but then the same color is used for buttons in the "Get involved" section. I find it confusing.
Moreover, the same color used for buttons in all sections is used to underline the header, making it look like it's clickable.
Headlines are difficult to read because they are stroke through by those colorful lines.

[ashleygwilliams]

We are not currently looking to overhaul the color or font scheme at this time. If you have small actionable tweaks you think we can make to improve this, I encourage you to file other issues.

[Ekleog]

@ashleygwilliams What is a small actionable tweak? I gave you two. If you don't consider these small actionable tweaks, you may as well say that the design is not up to debate and just close the issue tracker on this repository, as it is effectively useless.

Anyway, looks like I was right to assume it would be closed non-sequitur.

[e-oz]

Hope you will excuse my tone as well, but you can use some browser addon/extension to customize CSS of sites you want. I understand black-and-white design is more readable, but really not all sites in the internet should be black and white.

[e-oz]

We are not currently looking to overhaul the color or font scheme at this time.

Is it really "beta"?

[Ekleog]

@e-oz This is not about black-and-white design, just about increasing the contrast between (text, background) compared to the contrast between (background1, background2), for the part about the colors.

@ashleygwilliams In case you assumed my point was about black-and-white, like @e-oz appears to have, could you consider reopening it? I really think the tweaks proposed here are minor and actionable, they're basically a minor color shift. If it's not, then I would love to hear what you consider minor and actionable style tweak, because I can't see anything more minor.

[ashleygwilliams]

hi @Ekleog ! i had thought so- but i will reopen to discuss just tweaks to some of the colors (bump them slightly darker or light)! sorry about that :)

[ashleygwilliams]

@e-oz yes this is a beta- which means we already went through an alpha (all members of any rust team or working group). in the beta we are looking to polish, not do major overhauls. let me know if i can clarify further.

[e-oz]

I got it from the first time, no need to be aggresive.

[ashleygwilliams]

renaming this issue as #524 covers the text size in a bit more detail

[dogweather]

Headlines are difficult to read because they are stroke through by those colorful lines.

👍

[CAD97]

Headlines are difficult to read because they are stroke through by those colorful lines.

Minor tweak proposal: align the backstroke such that it lines up with the low upper bound of the letters, rather than being just below it. (I don't know the font setting term, but such that only the risers are off the stroke rather than every character going above it.) This aligns the background line with one that already visually exists -- the top of non-riser characters -- but keeps the distinctive style.

All in all, I like the new design, and realize that taking ideas from the community pushes into "design by committee" rather than the designer who actually designed the site, but this feels like an actionable suggestion that could work to mitigate that concern.

[stevensonmt]

Headlines are difficult to read because they are stroke through by those colorful lines.

Minor tweak proposal: align the backstroke such that it lines up with the low upper bound of the letters, rather than being just below it. (I don't know the font setting term, but such that only the risers are off the stroke rather than every character going above it.) This aligns the background line with one that already visually exists -- the top of non-riser characters -- but keeps the distinctive style.

I may be misunderstanding, but my impression of your suggestion is to create a tangent between the background and the text. This would decrease legibility in my opinion. I would suggest either not having lower case break the bounds of the background at all or lowering the background height further to create more distance between the lines of sight. The colors and levels of contrast are a bigger issue with regards to legibility, though.

[eddyp]

@e-oz yes this is a beta- which means we already went through an alpha (all members of any rust team or working group). in the beta we are looking to polish, not do major overhauls. let me know if i can clarify further.

Before reading anything, please keep in mind that I have exactly 0 intention to offend anyone who got involved in the this valuable work, or dismiss their effort. I am a newbie in Rust, I appreciate the language and all the people involved in making the community and the language a success, so what I am saying comes from a place of best intentions and with the hope it will help make Edition 2018 the huge success story Rust deserves.

After having a "elevator pitch" of Rust with some work colleagues and I sent them a link to https://www.rust-lang.org and to the Rustlings exercises and I hope they will take a look.

OTOH, today I found out there is a beta.rust-lang.org, which I assume is planned to be the new language page to go hand in hand with the "2018 edition" launch. I took a look and have to confess I was immediately worried that with the beta design the chance my colleagues would try to Rust will be significantly lower.

Please, do not take personally and do not consider this as an attack, but I really think you should take this one small actionable item:

reconsider the decision to reduce the number of colors used, if not from 5 to 3, at least to 4 .

If you will, you can consider interpreting the headline request to "limit the contrast in colors" by reducing the number of colors between which contrasts can occur. 😄

[eddyp]

reduce the number of colors used, [..] at least to 4.

Looking at the current page, I think eliminating the yellow is easiest:

1. by replacing it with the pink-ish color in the "GET STARTED" background
2. The yellow at the bottom of the page could be replaced either with the green or plain white (since links are underlined, anyway).