[hobbit] Hobbit colors/icons

[Kip, D. - GDI/SNB]

This is changing into a genral discussion about colors and icons, I
think...

Let's just use the Sony playstation icons? ;)

But seriously:

In general, I only want something to blink that requires immediate
attention.
And I want things that are in a 'normal' state to be pretty blended into
the background.

Less noise.


But to accommodate for people with color-blindness, as well as inform
others about functions of certain colors is not a bad idea at all.

Let me first phrase what I personally would like each state to be like. 

To me, the longterm green state should be something that almost blends
into the background. The recent green should only differentiate from
it's normal state, but hardly be noticed among other colors. It is the
good thing to have, so it needs to be unobtrusive.

The recent blue state, I would assume is set by a colleague or myself
for a reason, so it also should blend in the background. However, if a
blue state is staying for a while, I want someone to notice and check up
on it, to see if this is correct.

A recently red state should attract my attention, as well as a recent
yellow state. But a longterm red state should practically be screaming
at me and be as annoying as possible! Also a longterm yellow state
should encourage me to make the problem go away. So all of these should
at least have some form of blinking or movement to catch your eye, maybe
slow breathing for the first 24 hours, then fast and at irregular
intervals when they stay for too long. 

Purple I have my doubts about. Of course it's bad when a check does not
function properly. But at least to me, it basically only means someone
forgot to start the hobbit/xymon client ;) I personally don't need much
blinking annoyance here, but I may be missing out on something.

And the 'clear' state is a complete puzzle to me. It gets used in the
'badtest' as a transient state before yellow, but also for checks that
are not configured (for example in a 'files' check with no files
configured). In the latter function I can imagine you want it to attract
attention, but in the first I'd have made it go to yellow if I wanted it
to attract attention. I have no solution for this.

And the unknown state being a questionmark seems pretty obvious.

As for the shapes that these checks should have, and even different
shapes for different states, so colorblind people can tell something is
going on:

I'd say just simple nice soft round shapes for green. Dark and bright
should be noticeable for colorblind.
Yellow is a danger thing, and very many countries use triangles or
diamond shapes to indicate danger in roadsigns. That is probably the way
to go.
Red and things that are very dangerous are often associates with thick
crosses (X-shape if you like)
Somehow I feel like a starshape would be nice for the purple states, but
can't really explain it.
And a square seems appropriate for the 'clear' (white/grey) one to me.
And of course the questionmark for the 'unknown'. Its just very
appropriate for this state that should not occur.

That's just my 2 cents.



-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: dOCtoR MADneSs [mailto:doctor at makelofine.org] 
Verzonden: maandag 9 maart 2009 17:05
Aan: hobbit at hswn.dk
Onderwerp: Re: [hobbit] Another Theme (was Re: [hobbit] LED Theme for
Xymon)

Thanks again for your contribution. I don't have many time, so I submit
a request, if you can't/don't want to do it, i'll try to take time.
I think the colors are something good, but not enough. We should use a
set of icons more easy to interpert :
empty green circle : recent green
full filled green circle : green
blinking red cross (oriented like an X)  : recent red red cross
(oriented like an X) : red blinking  purple "?" : recente purple purple
"?" : recente purple Blue and purple are less important for me. What do
you think about this idea ? May be the purple and red difference between
recent and non-recent should be other than the one I described, but I
can't get time enough to mind about it ;)


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