GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 662951
Menu shadows are too thin
Last modified: 2011-10-30 17:38:29 UTC
Created attachment 200195 [details] shadows in 3.2 In GNOME 3.0, menus had a lovely shadow around them that allowed focusing clearly on the menu. They made a good visual distinction with the background. In 3.2, those shadows are virtually gone: there's some kind of 2px shadow instead of the nice feathered shadow we used to have. Now it mostly feels like there is no contour at all around the menus, it's mostly white on white. This is straining on the eyes and not very good for usability/accessibility. Not everybody has perfect eyesight!
Created attachment 200196 [details] shadows in 3.0
Note that the two screenshots use different fonts (Droid Sans vs Cantarell) but I guess the change should be obvious. Now, I imagine maybe the shadows in 3.0 were considered a bit too dark, but the look in 3.2 seems excessively poorly contrasty. Something in-between could be good.
Created attachment 200198 [details] screenshot of a popup menu This might be a better illustration of the "contrast hell" I'm referring to. It's white all over the place and it is hard to make out the menu from the rest of the "visual noise".
The shadow value changes were intentional and came directly from the GNOME visual designers.
Ok right, but is there any public discussion/design document/explanation for it? My google-fu failed me here and I'm trying to understand what issue you may have been trying to solve.
(In reply to comment #5) > Ok right, but is there any public discussion/design document/explanation for > it? My google-fu failed me here and I'm trying to understand what issue you may > have been trying to solve. I think the change was recorded in bug 649374.