[publican-list] RFC: Modified JBoss brand (was Re: RFE for Publican Brands)

[Joshua Wulf]

Thin rounded border without a doubt.

The current one has terrible contrast that reduces readability. Red on
Orange? A huge orange blob on the page?

==Coloured vs non-coloured background==

A coloured background reduces contrast, and hence readability, without
creating more intelligibility. A border enhances intelligibility by
allowing a reader to ascertain where the example starts and ends at a
glance. Filling in that border with a colour adds no further value.

Having a solid block of colour on a page, and multiples blocks of colour
on a page as our docs currently do, reduces intelligibility. When
looking at a page of this text the mind of the reader is pushed to
switch modes. Picture and pattern processing is different from text
stream processing. Visual cues should support the processing of the text
information on the page, and not overload the reader.

My vote goes to:

Thin rounded border - elegant, understated, supportive, encapsulates the
example.

*Without* the border the natural tendency in the example you've given
would be to consider the contents of the programlisting to be the whole
example, as it is a bounded area that immediately follows the Example
title. Having a border around the example clarifies this.

The border also allows a user to quickly skip over an entire example and
continue reading.

==Thick vs thin border:==

The thick rounded border is too heavy-handed and draws the eye away from
the content.

==Square vs rounded borders:==

Incorporating circles into the user interface was pioneered by Steve
Jobs while he was at NEXT. Prior to that user interfaces, although
executed on monitors that could support it, were informed by metaphors
and design principles that hadn't significantly changed since the tools
of execution were hammers and chisels.

==Indentation vs border==

Indentation is relative. As a visual cue its efficacy is lost when the
text above disappears off the screen, or you turn the page. I'm given to
understand that our current pdf processor doesn't support flow of
indentation across pages anyway, so with our current implementation it's
either ineffective or both ineffective and impossible.


On 10/13/2010 10:07 AM, Misty Stanley-Jones wrote:
> See https://fedorahosted.org/publican/wiki/JBossBrandChanges for screenshots and downloads. Thanks Jeff for the use of the Wiki!
> 
> Misty
> 
> ----- misty at redhat.com wrote:
> 
>> From: misty at redhat.com
>> To: "Jeffrey Fearn" <jfearn at redhat.com>
>> Cc: "Misty Stanley-Jones" <misty at redhat.com>, "Publican discussions" <publican-list at redhat.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 8:41:24 AM GMT +10:00 Brisbane
>> Subject: Re: [publican-list] RFC: Modified JBoss brand (was Re: RFE for Publican Brands)
>>
>> ----- "Jeffrey Fearn" <jfearn at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Verbatim style: Like!
>>>
>>> Admonition Style: The borders aren't useful in differentiating the 
>>> content. I think they could look better without them ... maybe new
>>> icons 
>>> would help there?
>>
>> I think they need something besides the icons to differentiate them,
>> especially the warning. At the same time, O'Reilly print documentation
>> seems to use one icon for notice/tip/info and another one for
>> warning/caution. No other differentiation. And they've sold a lot of
>> books using this system. Any other thoughts on this? Maybe Sean has
>> some thoughts (he is a usability expert after all).
>>
>>>
>>> Example Style: The colored border just looks wrong, this one has
>>> always 
>>> been the worst looking IMHO and the extra border was probably what
>> was
>>>
>>> wrong with it. I think the title at the top is demarcation enough.
>>
>> I think I agree with you and would like to change it to just a 1px
>> dark grey border, with white text inside. Thoughts?
>>
>>>
>>> Figure Style: The title looks wrong at the top.
>>
>> We all agree and I have changed it in my working copy.
>>
>>>
>>> We never tell people to manually copy files in to system areas, we
>>> have 
>>> processes to install them properly so their systems don't become
>> hard
>>> to 
>>> upgrade, or recover[...]
>>
>> Fair enough. In my enthusiasm I had forgotten that Publican has a
>> procedure for installing brands.
>>
>>>
>>> You can put the zips on the publican wiki if you want, you just
>> need
>>> to 
>>> login with your FAS details. The wiki is pretty open and anyone with
>> a
>>>
>>> FAS account can edit it.
>>>
>>> Cheers, Jeff.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Jeff Fearn <jfearn at redhat.com>
>>> Software Engineer
>>> Engineering Operations
>>> Red Hat, Inc
>>> Freedom ... courage ... Commitment ... ACCOUNTABILITY
>>
>> -- 
>> Misty Stanley-Jones
>> Content Author, ECS Brisbane
>> Ph: +61 7 3514 8105
>> RHCT #60501081553354
>> Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum.
>