(2017-04-30, 19:09)Hitcher Wrote: Estuary is well within 10 foot interface guidelines though.
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solu...typography
And as you can see just increasing the font sizes causes all sorts of layout problems unless you spend a lot of time adjusting things - so it's not as easy as people seem to think.
Hey Hitcher. The problem with interface guidelines is that they don't apply to everyone. They are likely based on the visual acuity of the average person. Unfortunately I, and many others, have a poorer visual acuity than the average person.
The average person sees 20/20, whereas I currently see around 20/50. This means that what the average person can see at 50 feet, I have to be as close as 20 feet to see. So if we apply this to the TV and your 10 foot interface guideline, that means while
you can read the fonts on Kodi comfortably from 10 feet away on your couch, I have to be just 4 feet away! This is why adjustable font sizes are so friggin' important.
But yes, larger fonts can make the UX look less pretty. But a pretty UX is a nice-to-have, a legible UX is a MUST have. Any UX designer should do their best to build a UX that can adapt and stretch to as many font sizes as possible. However, eventually a font size may be set bigger than what can be reasonably expected in which case it becomes user beware.
In the short term, I'd like to see an option added where the user can enter a "Minimum Font Size" allowing them to enter any font size number that could be entered into font.xml. This would override any font size in font.xml that is smaller than the set minimum. This is a hammer approach because it affects all areas of the UX, but is probably the easiest place to start. To protect Kodi from any problems related to this setting, a large warning should be displayed when attempting to change this setting. Something like...
WARNING - Applying a font size that is too large may negative affect or break Kodi's user interface. Text and UI elements may become illegible, hidden or break. Proceed at your own risk. To help avoid problems, we recommend starting with a small font size, viewing its effects and then increasing in small steps until the desired legibility is achieved.
In the long term, I'd like to see font.xml broken down into finer settings. Right now I believe some font.xml settings affect multiple parts of the UX. The is bad in that if the user only wants to make a certain aspect of the UX bigger, something else will change also. Each individual element of the UX should have its own font.xml setting. That way the user can change the font size of only what they need without negatively affecting anything else.
Then a font section could be added to Kodi settings where the size of each UX element can be set. Something like...
Movie/TV/music lists [___]
Movie/TV/Music descriptions [___]
Main menu [___]
Clock [___]
Movie/TV/Music widgets [___]
Category widgets [___]
Media flags [___]
etc...
Again, this page could also have a huge warning about possible side effects.
Anyway, I guess unless you actually have poor vision you really don't understand just how important adjustable font sizes are.
Thanks