Feedback 2019.3.0a7 - New UI accessibility issue, font rendering & colors are low contrast

you can assign shortcuts to window layouts!

So you can have a few different window layouts and switch between them very fast with a keystroke

And in the roadmap there is a screenshot with "workspaces" assigner to buttons, this also looks like same as blender or maya

 

oh noo.. I understood you perfectly well.. that's the problem.

 

I'm sorry, but... Then I didn’t understand you...
Do you disagree with what I wrote about the new beta2 interface with a new font?
But, do you really like these blurry letters that are made thicker to increase their visibility in the headings etc?
I just expressed my opinion - I really don't like all this.
There are more serious reasons for this besides personal antipathy.
Believe me - since the mid-80s I managed to look at many various monitors and saw many-many interfaces.
And the creepy first CGA and VGA monitors with shaky and unfocused letters and a flicker frequency of less than 30 Hz, and before them Monochrome Green on Black, after a day spent after which, you got home from work - when you look at an apple or tomato, you still saw a raster on it!
You can hardly imagine, of course. Well, just like that - any red object was in a raster strip.
For a lo-o-o-ong time. For hours.
And despite all this - I still do without glasses. Not least because I always paid attention to what I was working with. That's why I write that (somewhere nearest thread on this forum) : -No one will ever force me to work with the interface with "light letters on dark", no matter how fashionable it is.
And I will not work in the program (and look at the pages on the site) where the “dark on light” and “light on dark” meet rows or alternate - also never.
And it will be Nonsense if having survived all these "stone age" technologies and finally waiting for new high-quality LCD monitors - I will lose my sight because of someone’s whim and fashion! Simply because the stupid “flat interface” with the Dark Theme is now fashionable. :-\

Unity, of course, does not have most of the interface errors described by me. Аlthough there are on their new Assetstore and the official website. And even on this forum , -look at the black "basement" and page header - why is this with a light background of the main text? -At the slightest error in setting the correct illumination, this can lead to the effect of a “hit in the eyes”
But even without such errors, this new font in the Beta2 makes me sad

 

"Do you disagree with what I wrote about the new beta2 interface with a new font?"

No I agree, I don't like it, can't say there is a single thing I do like about it...it's all just worse. Seriously ffff disappointing

"I just expressed my opinion - I really don't like all this."

101% agree same here.

 

Left: 2019.3.0b1 Right: 2019.3.0b2

Besides increasing the font size and making everything more condensed (leass readable in my opionion, but's that's discussable), the font looks somewhat stretched vertically. Also, it's less sharp / looks blurry around the edges. Minor nitpicks - I'm not totally against it, but some details could be better




Is there an option to adjust font size? I'd like to bring it down to 11 again (on the right side it's 12).

Also, I assume it's some inbetween state, as there is a really weird mix of colors/bold/very bold/bold and blurry/little bit gray/very gray/sharp/really blurry all over the place.



All the new whitespace gained through the UI adjustments in last versions is now gone again as basically the font now fills all available space.



Also, would be great if someone takes a look at the kerning of the bold font version (see "AudioBuddy" on the right above, or the word "Element" for arrays).

 

Bug: Disabled sliders have funny color


Bug: line height cuts off all G's, Y's, P's etc.


That's 8 different font / style / color combinations if I'm not mistaken.


800% closeups of fonts - seems the new font is hinted in some places and not hinted in other places:
In Console headers - GOOD, font is properly hinted for this font size


In Package Manager - BAD, font is not properly hinted for this font size

 

yep, the font is more blurry overall. Font in 2018.4 Windows looks more crisp here and is significantly more pleasant to read for me.

 

Would also be great if someone rethinks the [Header] attribute. Currently it's a) not seen as header since the distance to the item is smaller than to the group b) just looks wrong when the properties below the header have prefab overrides.



As explanation: "Diving" and "Library" are headers here for the entire sections below them.

 

Another example of current header layout.

 

Some letters are cut off in the Inspector name field, please see image below.

(Case 1187688) 2019.3: Editor UI: Letters cut off in Inspector

Spoiler: Screenshot

 

Disabled sliders appear in a cyan like color and attract a lot of attention due to the color.

(Case 1187690) 2019.3: Editor UI: Disabled slider appears in cyan like color

Spoiler: Screenshot

 

Numbers in the Script Execution Order are cut off.

Spoiler: Screenshot

(Case 1187691) 2019.3: Editor UI: Script Execution Order, numbers are cut off text

 

A big issue for me is lacking button feedback. It's difficult for me to distinguish what a button is and what's just a text on a panel.
(Case 1187383) 2019.3: Editor UI Button Feedback

I believe the problem for this being the lack of any 3d'ish look to a regular button, like other UI controls like a drop-down has. A button kinda looks like a "HelpBox" from the old UI.

Spoiler: Code

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEditor;
5.  
6. public class TestCode : EditorWindow
7. {
8.     [MenuItem("BugReport/Open Window")]
9.     static void DoMenuItem()
10.     {
11.         var wnd = GetWindow<TestCode>();
12.         wnd.Show();
13.     }
14.  
15.     void OnGUI()
16.     {
17.         GUILayout.Space(16);
18.  
19.         if (GUILayout.Button("Button"))
20.         {
21.             Debug.Log("Button");
22.         }
23.  
24.         GUILayout.Space(16);
25.  
26.         if (GUILayout.Button("miniButton", EditorStyles.miniButton))
27.         {
28.             Debug.Log("miniButton");
29.         }
30.  
31.         GUILayout.Space(16);
32.  
33.         if (GUILayout.Button("toolbarButton", EditorStyles.toolbarButton))
34.         {
35.             Debug.Log("toolbarButton");
36.         }
37.     }
38. }
39.  

The miniButton does have that tiny 3d'ish look to it, but not have any feedback when the button is pressed.

Here is a video that compares buttons in 2018.4 and 2019.3. The video does not include a mouse pointer, so that makes it a little extra magic when buttons trigger that have no feedback

 

Statistics window has only top rounded edges, it would be more consistent to have all edges rounded or all edges square.

 

I think you could also remove the "Statistics" headline, as it's pretty obvious that these are stats. This would make the overlay a bit smaller. I would also remove the empty space at the bottom, which would make the overlay even smaller.

 

In 2020.1.0a5 The bold texts still look "Blurry" and the contrast between text and the background is too low.
Couldn't you just use the backgrounds, colors, fonts, text sizes from 2019.2 and just use new fonts and flat style?





The text in 2020.1.0 and 2019.3 is still looking blurry and the background color is bad.
The older one was very suitable, due to the fact the contrast between the text and the background was good.

 

One more case of cutoff text:
the bottom parameter is called "maxgoal_distance". Both underscore and g are gone in the new UI. Note that this is a text input field, so a user will have to actually remember/double check what is in there (could be "maxooal distance" or "maxgoal distance" or even "maxgoal_distance_").

 

@maryllu thanks for sharing the hig link, haven't seen that before. Are you open to receiving feedback about the principles laid out on that page so far? A lot of issues seen in this very thread here might stem from the fact that there are quite some missing infos / principles on that page, for example for creating icons for a productivity software (which is very different from creating icons for, say, a website).

 

I wonder why there is a difference between font size in the project panel, the right side fonts are larger than the left side ( 2020.1a7 Mac )

 

@maryllu
I've just updated Unity to 2020.1.0a7.
I still vote for changing the background color of the section where directories are listed to the previous color (2019.2), but it's a detail.

The most important thing is y'all solved a problem with the majority of texts and fonts, but bold texts are still looking blurry.

Just take a look at this:

 

@maryllu about the font bluriness, there's a couple of zoomed in examples in this thread (like this and what WaxerPL has been posting). Basically hinting seems to be broken on the specific font size for both regular and bold, might be a side effect of bumping the font size by 1. Happens on all devices (and I tested it on a lot of Windows devices, all kinds of resolutions).
(Just as note, will those 2020.1 fixes be backported? 2019.3 will the be the first release in the new design, right?)

 

But... I wrote this almost a month ago...
Since then I have already installed several new beta versions. And 2019.2 I have no longer installed to take screenshots for comparison...

Oookey... I’ll try to remember that I can and answer point by point

1. based on what I mention in the previously installed "alpha and beta 1" - apparently it was about 2019.3.0b2 (but all this applies to all subsequent ones, including the latest 2019.3.0b5)

2. Win7 64 sp1, 1366x768, no external

3. all settings "by default" didn’t even know about this option ... sorry

4. Oh... That's all I found in the previously taken screenshots:
-just compare words "Transform" and "Player controller" in the inspector of these two beta...
in general, everything is written in bold in the inspector window - blurry. Headers, changed fields - take a look at the values in the transform component!

And just look at the difference between the sharpness of the text in the menu and in the inspector - in the same beta!

-And yes, if in the future the menu is also translated into these blurry letters, this will be a complete torture.
Although... -And so already enough eye strain.
I read the menu much less often than text in the inspector and console.

5.In one of the announcements I read that you switched to "inter." (if I am not mistaken)
Right after that, in the next beta, I saw this “flattened and compressed” text. In PacketManager etc. (it was difficult to read, more difficult than the old version. For me)

But! Now in 2019.3.0b5 -descriptions of packages in Paсkmen are read much, much better!
Big Big Thanks!!!

 

New 2020 alpha issue (hardly readable bold italics):

 

Posting Unite talk here, because it's relevant to the new UI...

 

is so much wrong with that presentation..... like the cherry picked reasoning on why they made the changes.. just the feedback alone like wtf... unity's gui problems are more a lack of effort on improving actual workflow, despite countless suggestions!

Personally think ever since more people in 'design' areas' have started talking about UX.. the worse actual effing gui's and user experiences have become, its like the lowest common denominator of dumb down design is what takes precedence now, and the people pushing it seem to have the obsolete worst idea's of how to improve something, other than I saw some idiot trying to work with this, and I could easily dumb it down for them... must be a general equality belief thing.. everything must be equalised to sh!t.

And who the hell said the interface before was uninspiring, it was the only game engine gui that didn't look like it was designed by idiots.. ie unreal stupid oversized icons and just generally awful waste of space for toolbars etc.. or godot modern flat S*** gui, ... gradients are used for a damn reason you uninspired hacks, pushing out out them crappy flat boring gui's as can be seen to be taking over the modern day gui downspiral of global garbage design isn't good design... its rubbish.

And frankly now unity joins the sloppy low effort waste bin of poor gui design, the only thing I could say is that it works as an selling point for the darker gui, because light elements next to various other light grey with zero gradients, is a shining point for darker gui skin as that hides all the God awful design flaws of it.

"Made the software look more modern by removing the dated gradients".. by replacing it with crap flat colors for everything so it all just blends in like a pile of harder to distinguish rubbish.. to match every other modern slop for a gui... seriously what a joke unity.

I've held back voicing my opinion on this 2019.3 ugly gui screwup, what a bloody dissapointment, loath that I've invested in so many addons on the store to think I'll have to use this rubbish gui 2019.3 onwards just to get the other engine improvements.. what damn disappointment.

It really is an incredibly flat and uninspiring gui, complete with even more problems than before, including poor text sizing, poor padding and spacing between elements, along with all the same familiarity's of UX that hasn't really changed for the better at all.

And where is the damn history back/foward history switcher... already from 2017...

https://forum.unity.com/threads/uni...d-artist-workflows.467951/page-5#post-3056699

it's not hard that's how I used to have it.. was done before, then you messed up with the project settings panel update that doesn't effing work in a horizontal layout without the fat sidebar taking up space if its put into the usual inspector sidebar panel!

 

Copy and pasting some feedback from another, perhaps less appropriate, thread

--

The [Header] attribute spacing is pretty off - Needs to be higher (and work with DPI scaling).

Arrays (and structs) draw with a header that is a slightly bigger font than other fields, which looks awful.

The left-spacing on lots of text (Account/Layers/Default, Center/Local, Inspector Fields, Gizmos button in scene view) is too small, making it feel too tight.

The ScriptableObject icon is a bit of a miss, in our view. It's okay in "icon" view, but if you use "list" in the project window, they look pretty poor. Also red/orange and blue is, subjectively, not working here.

There are two styles of icons right now, which aren't very coherent. There are 'filled' (Game, Asset Store, Prefab, Scene) and 'line' (Scriptable Object, Center, Local) icons. The filled ones read infinitely better at small scales.

The 'Play, Pause, Frame Skip' buttons at the top might as well be a bit wider. You smash them all the time, and there is so much space around them, could be nice to make them easier to hit.

To us, the inspector looks best (on a 1440p monitor) at 125% scaling; but the new font reads as just slightly too big. Would love to be able to just make it a smidge smaller. Appriciate pixel blurring issues come up, so this might be impossible.

--

I see there is already a fair amount of discussion around fonts here, so probably nothing new from us.

 

@DigitalSalmon
You know the keyboard shortcut Control+P. ? its for play
It saves you looking for the play button

I don't think they are too small, they are consistent with the other toolbar icons, it would look strange to enlarge only one button and the rest not. So I would keep that one how it is now

 

Some more bits -

Muted tracks on Timeline jitter when you scrub the timeline.

Timeline icons (Next to track labels, visibility, muted icons) are all pretty busted. Probably related to 125% scale.

Scene icon is fine, but Game and Asset Store icons next to window title are also busted; again, probably scale related.

 

My thread about beta feedback was closed so I'm copying the contents here to the alpha 7 thread like Unity suggested for it to get lost in the noise:

- The new editor skin looks bland, like it's an early prototype quickly put together in Paint
- Icons look extremely low effort, the cube for "GameObject" is the kind of cube I used to draw when I was 5 in Paint, the icon for "folder" is just the outline of the old, filled in with a flat color
- Icons are also hard to tell apart at a glance, for instance "Prefab" and "Model" (this got improved since it was posted by adjusting the blue and gray colors used but it's still just an extra stripe on a box). The old "sheet of paper over a box" didn't make any sense but at least it was more visually distinct than these two
- The "Generate Lighting" button/dropdown combo looks exactly the same as a regular dropdown, but still behaves like a button or a dropdown depending on what part you click - the line that used to divide the two parts is gone
- On the top of Inspector, "Open" and "Select" look like they're tabs because their bottom border is missing
- On the Inspector (seems to be limited to the Inspector tab only), when there's a collapsible section within a component (like "> Events" on the Player Input component) you cannot click the triangle to expand/collapse it, only the word itself. For components, the triangle still works.

 

There are other pieces of feedback from other users over at https://forum.unity.com/threads/2019-3-0b-1-6-editor-feedback.735959

 

Accoring to the following Unite talk, it's a two years effort.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/201...s-are-low-contrast.703745/page-2#post-5039429

 

With enough technical debt, mismanagement, meetings for the sake of meetings, lack of direction, etc. you can have virtually any task take any number of years, two years doesn't say much without knowing all the details that went into it.

 

Keep in mind its not yet final, and we are in a transition period towards a more refined UI.

Here you can see it on the roadmap

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/09/26/unity-roadmap-unite-copenhagen-2019/

 

Then why release this half-baked thing in 2019.4 LTS instead of throughout the 2020 TECH stream?!

 

Importing a Unity package uses a different set of icons than actual Project Window right after import.
(seems to use the old .asset icon)

 

yeah ... they never learn despite being told not to do so.. they did the same thing with the new prefab system which they shoved into 2019.3.. beta testing feedback maybe loops back into improvements and fixes, usually months or years after the fact.. so 2019.1 or .2 is better than 2018.4 lts imo as you get the bug fixes faster, while the lts edition just lags behind in back ports of fixes, they should have introduced prefab change into 2019.1 it would have gone down better....they need to quit adding in big changes that everyone has to use on the end of year release and hold it back a few months into the start of the new year release. I'm ok with ibg changes been shoved into the engine that are really optional and bleeding edge things most people wouldn't be using.. but things like prefabs.. everyone has to use it, gui everyone has to use it, etc

frankly 2019.3 frontend gui is disgustingly bland, broken and awful to look at and use, and should have been left for 2020.1 so I'd at least have a 2019.4 lts version to stay on for longer.. basically it will be the same as this year and I'll skip the lts again.

 

Another one on the pile: the dividing line between the top and bottom "halves" of the Console sometimes disappears, which makes reading pretty painful if you just so happen to be scrolled on exactly a line of text - you think the next line is a continuation of the log message but in fact it isn't.

 

Here is another one. Create and select a "Sprite Atlas" asset in 2019.3.0b7 and you should see...

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/bugs-in-ui-and-icons-background-case-1192235.762599/

Here a strange thing with icons background

 

It would be so nice if this was reverted and the actually tried, tested UI be used for the 2019 LTS where, you know, you want things to be stable while this one gets fully fleshed out in 2020...

 

When I select a shader in the project panel, its icon disappears while it's selected:


The same happens to scripts and a few other asset types. Unaffected are scenes and textures.