Anyone find the color selection on WP8 uninspiring?

[ballanda]

Would like something darker. There are no good choices for dark colors. I'd love a navy or dark grey. White text on bright backgrounds burns my retinas, and the high-contrast mode is a little too drab.

 

[KQ17]

We should be able to choose the Tiles color with something like this :

 

[ny_yankees]

I would also love to see a color plate selection too. Some of the colors are just quite bland in my opinion

 

[IceDree]

I keep switching between the Cobalt , Lime & Yellow , So I'm good , but I would love to have an option for an RBG\Hex picker !

 

[JoJoUK]

I want the Nokia Blue from the Lumia 800, it was perfect! Looks like the blue used for the skydrive tile, pretty close to cobalt (on the 920, the 820 no so much). Picky I know!

 

[Koutei]

We should be able to choose the Tiles color with something like this :

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/colormap.gif

Please, this !

 

[unstoppablekem]

With the myriad of color choices out there, the colors chosen as "accents" are a bit bland and uninspiring. I know where the inspiration for the overall look has come from, but considering how big the color spectrum is, maybe not only MSFT, but other companies should really consider the gamut of colors for their screens and OS. Really surprised that there isn't an option to choose my own accent color.

What to you think?

This! It doesn't hurt, and we would still have the picker.

 

[unstoppablekem]

Would like something darker. There are no good choices for dark colors. I'd love a navy or dark grey. White text on bright backgrounds burns my retinas, and the high-contrast mode is a little too drab.

Is cobalt too light? Because that is like a darker blue.

 

[Edster69]

In addition to extending the accent color palette, I would like to have the option to select the text, message bubble and alert bubble colors. In some accent themes the unread or alert items are not very distinguished, such as in the gray accent, but if you could choose say cobalt or orange text, it would be more noticeable.

 

[daveh101]

I have to say, that in general I disagree with this - Although, I would say that more work could be done, allowing predefined colours for moods and some clever stuff like that!!

However, my main reason for disagreeing with this is because this is actually done by design. The point of Windows Phone, and the Accent Colour is that it allows a theme to be applied to the whole phone, not just the native apps within the OS. This means that for me (as a developer) I need to think a little bit more about being able to include this Accent Colour throughout my app, meaning that the user will feel like they have been thought about and that the app belongs on the platform.

I believe that a lot of thought has gone into the allowed colours for accents and these colours have been chosen because they do not clash when put onto either of the dark or light themes. To give an example, the HTC 8x custom accent actually starts to blend in a bit and become harder to read.

There is a big argument for allowing the user to have choice - But the majority of users won't realise that an app looks bad because of their poor choice of colour - They will just blame it on the app or the OS.

At least this way, when a colour is chosen, it works, and it works throughout everything.

So, I hope that most of you will read this and see this question with a slightly different viewpoint - I really don't believe this is lack of 'want' from Microsoft, I actually think it has been thought about very carefully

 

[RJ Priest]

I agree. I would like to see some "aero" polish to the tiles and maybe round the corners a tad.

From one Rob to another, I would not like to see rounded corners. I love metro, and I now see rounded corners in UI design as "yuk!"

I feel that the colour selection in WP8 pretty much covers "all the bases". While I would like to see a RGB colour selector and hexidecimal colour code input, all I'd personally end up getting out of it would be a variant of the "lime" colour in which the white text wouldn't show up too well, or a different shade of red.

 

[MercenaryOne]

Id like the option to change individual tiles.

 

[Verkunder]

Id like the option to change individual tiles.

Here we go. I like the thought of my start screen being varied, like the Windows 8 desktop.

 

[AndyM72]

I believe that a lot of thought has gone into the allowed colours for accents and these colours have been chosen because they do not clash when put onto either of the dark or light themes.

Since the Themes are fully Black and fully White, the Accent colours have to work with both. So using the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness colour model, you want colours that have a Lightness value as close to 0.5 as you can get (because any colour with Lightness of 0 is Black, and any with Lightness of 1 is White, and the Accent colours need to be as far away from both Black and White as possible, which is the middle).

If Microsoft were going to give users more control, they could only give you full control over Hue and Saturation, because Lightness has to stay in the middle. So they could give you 3 options - Pure Colours (Lightness = 0.5), Tints (Lightness a little above 0.5) and Shades (Lightness a little below 0.5), and then sliders for Hue and Saturation.

 

[MercenaryOne]

Since the Themes are fully Black and fully White, the Accent colours have to work with both. So using the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness colour model, you want colours that have a Lightness value as close to 0.5 as you can get (because any colour with Lightness of 0 is Black, and any with Lightness of 1 is White, and the Accent colours need to be as far away from both Black and White as possible, which is the middle).

If Microsoft were going to give users more control, they could only give you full control over Hue and Saturation, because Lightness has to stay in the middle. So they could give you 3 options - Pure Colours (Lightness = 0.5), Tints (Lightness a little above 0.5) and Shades (Lightness a little below 0.5), and then sliders for Hue and Saturation.

We can keep the same color pallette for all I care, I would just like to change individual tiles color to more easily distinguish items. I also hate that certain tiles are predetermined color.

 

[IceDree]

I have to say, that in general I disagree with this - Although, I would say that more work could be done, allowing predefined colours for moods and some clever stuff like that!!

However, my main reason for disagreeing with this is because this is actually done by design. The point of Windows Phone, and the Accent Colour is that it allows a theme to be applied to the whole phone, not just the native apps within the OS. This means that for me (as a developer) I need to think a little bit more about being able to include this Accent Colour throughout my app, meaning that the user will feel like they have been thought about and that the app belongs on the platform.

I believe that a lot of thought has gone into the allowed colours for accents and these colours have been chosen because they do not clash when put onto either of the dark or light themes. To give an example, the HTC 8x custom accent actually starts to blend in a bit and become harder to read.

There is a big argument for allowing the user to have choice - But the majority of users won't realise that an app looks bad because of their poor choice of colour - They will just blame it on the app or the OS.

At least this way, when a colour is chosen, it works, and it works throughout everything.

So, I hope that most of you will read this and see this question with a slightly different viewpoint - I really don't believe this is lack of 'want' from Microsoft, I actually think it has been thought about very carefully

That makes a lot of sense & I agree with you !

As you said , when you pick a color , you know it will work out with everything ! while being elegant & professional at the same time .
it also gives the illusion of that the apps are part of the OS while keeping their own identity at the same time ! & doesn't make it looks like it was stitched together ! (Think Android & the Apps that doen't follow Holo Guide lines i.e. Instagram or Tumblr)

 

[StefEBear]

I agree. I would like to see some "aero" polish to the tiles and maybe round the corners a tad.

So make the tiles more like iOS I think not

 

[spaulagain]

We should be able to choose the Tiles color with something like this :

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/colormap.gif

Except half those colors would make Text difficult to read throughout the OS. Color options have to be limited to insure usability. That's why MS has only given users so many options.

Unlike Android which you can customize to purely unusable ugliness, MS has learned that you have to retain control of certain elements in the UI to maintain usability.

A few more colors would be nice, but a full 32 bit color picker, no way.

 

[spaulagain]

I have to say, that in general I disagree with this - Although, I would say that more work could be done, allowing predefined colours for moods and some clever stuff like that!!

However, my main reason for disagreeing with this is because this is actually done by design. The point of Windows Phone, and the Accent Colour is that it allows a theme to be applied to the whole phone, not just the native apps within the OS. This means that for me (as a developer) I need to think a little bit more about being able to include this Accent Colour throughout my app, meaning that the user will feel like they have been thought about and that the app belongs on the platform.

I believe that a lot of thought has gone into the allowed colours for accents and these colours have been chosen because they do not clash when put onto either of the dark or light themes. To give an example, the HTC 8x custom accent actually starts to blend in a bit and become harder to read.

There is a big argument for allowing the user to have choice - But the majority of users won't realise that an app looks bad because of their poor choice of colour - They will just blame it on the app or the OS.

At least this way, when a colour is chosen, it works, and it works throughout everything.

So, I hope that most of you will read this and see this question with a slightly different viewpoint - I really don't believe this is lack of 'want' from Microsoft, I actually think it has been thought about very carefully

EXACTLY

I'm glad someone else understands the UI by design.

 

[hawkstone]

That color is one people who know colors call red... Because real red looks exactly like that. Almost orange.

That's absurd of course. Red is red, not orange. One of the primary colors of light.