20
votes
Requesting feedback on my implementation of Nord into Tildes
Hello fine people. I recently patched the Nord theme into Tildes. I am requesting some feedback on potential changes to make to it. This is my first time doing something like this so please be patient if I am a bit slow. Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you in advance!
Dark theme preview
Light theme preview
Nord
Gitlab merge request
Edit: Thank you everyone for the feedback! I'll try to get the merge request out tomorrow with the fixes.
Hey, thanks for contributing to Tildes. Also, today I learned I could change the theme in the settings.
My overarching comment is that the contrast on both layouts seems too low.
Light theme: The words in light blue text (TestUser, Edit, and Preview) are almost lost. The pink/purplish color for the links is not as bad, but still pretty pale. The grey dividing lines are almost lost.
Dark theme: the pink link color seems (ironically) too dark. And again the grey dividing lines are almost lost.
When I look at the Nord site you linked, the site itself (which I am assuming uses the color pallete) is very easy to read, in both light mode and dark mode so I think the low contrast is more a property of the colors that were used in the samples than the palletes themselves.
There are tools like this one, the first google hit that can give contrast guidance. I am not saying meeting these standards is a strict requirement because it seems like the default themes probably do, but it seems reasonable to use the accessibility standards for contrast as a good starting place for a design.
Lest you feel singled out, I will say that I think many of the other theme options available suffer from a similar problem, so if you were looking at them, I can see how you might end up where you did.
Also, I am just one dude who was happy until today using default black, so maybe I am just too old or an outlier, and everyone else is surfing the web with their slate-on-black and bone-on-white themes, living their best lives.
Seconding the thanks for the contribution, @Rucker! But also seconding the suggestion to consider modifying the themes to increase the contrast a bit. I don't mind slightly lower contrast themes, and dislike super harsh black on white, or white on black text. However, these Nord themes are a bit too low contrast even for me too. The Topic title and comment text is fine, but the username and URL are very hard to read in both the light and dark versions of the theme.
cc: @Deimos, in case you didn't see this topic or the merge request yet.
I can definitely swap out the blues pretty easily. The dividing lines and links might get a little complicated but I can definitely make it happen. Thank you for the contrast checker that will come in very handy alongside the rest of the feedback.
Thanks, @Rucker! I've merged the themes in now and they're available on the site.
However, after trying them out for a short time, I definitely agree with the users who have said that some elements are too low-contrast and difficult to read/distinguish (especially in the Light variant). It will probably be a lot easier for you to play around and evaluate the themes now that you can easily see them applied to actual Tildes pages, so could you please try to submit another merge request soon that adjusts some of the colors to improve those issues?
Thank you for merging my changes! I am a bit busy today but I will definitely try to get the merge out either tomorrow or this weekend.
Just in case you weren't aware, you can preview all the themes (including your Nord ones now) on:
https://tildes.net/settings/theme_previews
And it has all the major use cases for the colors as well, so you can more easily see if any need to be adjusted.
Thanks for letting me know about Tildes themes! I'm a Dracula fan.
I love your dark theme, I think it looks great. My only comment would be the "submit" button is a bit on the overly bright side. I think it could be a bit more subtle, for the low-contrast look you're trying to achieve. Maybe a variation on the purple.