808246 - The date/time doesn't show well with pale wallpapers on the homescreen

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Homescreen, defect, P3)

Description

[Larissa Co [:lco]]

Attachment: homescreen with pale wallpaper

The problem is especially bad with wallpapers that have a lot of detail in them.

I know we tried to use a shadow to lift the white text for the date and time, but it isn't very effective. When it's in front of a wallpaper with detail, it makes the text harder to read. It also makes the text look unpolished when displayed on any other background. 

We might want to think of a different visual treatment, since the date/time look gorgeous on the lock screen. maybe we have the top portion dimmer? It might feel heavy with the bottom bar though.

Worse case scenario, we should remove default wallpapers that don't show up well. This would make me sad, because I happen to like these cherry blossoms :(

Comment 1

[Larissa Co [:lco]]

Btw, the attached screenshot doesn't look too bad on the computer, but check it out on the phone (mine had auto-brightness off). It was pretty hard to see.

Comment 2

[Patryk Adamczyk [:patryk] UX]

We have 3 or 4 wallpapers that don't show up well. Having that big clock introduces several problems, so we should rework it. Perhaps that's a style change that be applied after the lock screen is complete, so we can unify the 2?

Comment 3

[Cristian Rodriguez (:crdlc)]

According to last polished for the clock & date in landing page (bug 6637); Steve suggested me that we should do darker the clock and date shadow so it could help here :)

Comment 4

[Sergi]

I agree we should do something to solve this because it's really hard to see the hour+date not only with visually complex wallpapers, but also with the ones using bright colors.

I also think that maybe using a different treatment for the shadow will do the trick, maybe making it not dropping to the right but centered with the text and making it a little bit stronger.

Another option i would try is to not use pure white for the font but a bright gray. It would be unnoticeable when used with dark backgrounds and may help improving legibility with the brightest ones.

Comment 5

[Cristian Rodriguez (:crdlc)]

You know Sergi, provide me correct color, shadows,... and I could implement the changes in a moment

Comment 7

[Cristian Rodriguez (:crdlc)]

Attachment: Patch provided by Sergi and Arnau

Comment 8

[Cristian Rodriguez (:crdlc)]

Comment on attachment 710691 [details]
Patch provided by Sergi and Arnau

NOTE: If blocking-basecamp+ is set, just land it for now.

[Approval Request Comment]
Bug caused by (feature/regressing bug #): 
User impact if declined: data/time doesn't show well with pale backgrounds so bad user experience
Testing completed: yes
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): null

Comment 9

[Lukas Blakk [:lsblakk] use ?needinfo]

Comment on attachment 710691 [details]
Patch provided by Sergi and Arnau

polish, low risk, approving for v1-train uplift.

Comment 10

[Cristian Rodriguez (:crdlc)]

https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/commit/4c9b19becc40e43ee84e6db60f0bc59df58ee5ee

Comment 11

[John Ford [:jhford] CET/CEST Berlin Time]

v1-train: 52e79010e79b26880157adc45ca7e85c82175df0

Comment 12

[Sergi]

@Arnau, can you attach a screenshot with the patch applied?

Comment 13

[Lukas Blakk [:lsblakk] use ?needinfo]

Batch edit: bugs fixed on b2g18 since 1/25 branch of v1.0 are fixed on v1.0.1