theme, transparency and highlighting

[Fania Jöck]

Hi,

we already had some discussions in the mailinglist about the 
transparency and the theming of Plasma.

I understand that most of you try to avoid heavy colors, thick themes 
and disturbing designs.
But in my opinion selected object, objects that are in focus or buttons 
that are enabled need a highlight color. And this cant be white. I agree 
that maybe blue is a color that is most reduced and clean, for most
of the people. But even blue is on a transparent and blue-ish interface 
sometimes hard to detect.

Just a short example and test: which object is highlighted in the 
following two shots?
http://share.basyskom.com/contour/UIDesign/highlighting_COntour_1.jpg
http://share.basyskom.com/contour/UIDesign/highlighting_COntour_2.jpg

I did a short usability testing. The test person said: "nothing is 
selected."

To help the user in precise situation when focus is needed, I would 
prefer to use a good visible highlight colour; how about a nice orange 
shade, going nicely with the orange logo of Plasma Active (is that logo 
still alive?).

My2cents,
Fania