Topic       : TOS - The Operating System
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View Ref-File10.2.7  Special effects                                            TOS

Particular care is required for using colours, text attributes etc. 
Usually the motto Less is more! applies here.

One cannot provide here a patent recipe, but only the suggestion that 
one should orient oneself on examplary application models.

Particularly when using colours, software developers should keep at 
the back of their minds that human colour sense is very subjective; 
from this follows that it should be possible for the user to set the 
colours in a way he finds agreeable.




An exemplary application in this respect is the relational database 
system Phoenix by Application Systems Heidelberg, for instance, which 
is illustrated above. Here the user can configure freely almost every 
aspect of the user interface.

In text documents one should take care not to use too many, or mixed 
text attributes (effects such as bold, italic, underscored, shadowed, 
light or outlined etc.) at the same time. Here too the motto Less is 
more! applies. But this statement cannot be applied across the board: 
There are cases where the use of several attributes at a time can not 
just be tolerated, but is recommended. In a hypertext system, for 
instance, the cross-references must be made particularly clear to the 
user. On nearly all platforms it is standard to display these cross- 
references underscored, and if possible also in colour. This has the 
advantage that text passages that use a simple attribute can still be 
differentiated from the cross-references.

Absence of a patent recipe leads to uncertainty in many developers 
which culminates in forgoing special effects or colours completely. 
But that missess the whole point! Colour, sensibly used, can not just 
increase clarity appreciably, but also drastically increase an appli 
cation's attractiveness. However, developers should also keep in mind 
that some users may be working in 2-colour (monochrome) resolutions 
and ensure that their program is still usable under those conditions.

To sum up: Special effects (of whatever kind) should be used in a 
premeditated and sparse manner.

During the development of a software product the programmer would do 
well to include a typical user as soon as possible in his work (user- 
testing), and to orient himself on model programs. The most sensible 
thing is to make all ticklish points freely configurable by the user!

See Also: About the AES   Style guidelines