Nerd Snipe! - Pick a website that uses consistent shadows. Assume that the website is a 3 dimensional object that could cast those shadows. Also assume that the object is positioned sitting on the ground, with the length of the page normal to the surface of the earth. Provide a location, rotation, time of day and day of year in which the shadows are accurate.
FourShadows.js – Time-aware algorithm driven shadows for icons
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Re: FourShadows.js – Time-aware algorithm driven shadows for icons
#22Clever, but light comes from the sky (it always comes from the sky in nature...light from below weirds us out). It's probably poor design to have shadows rotating throughout the day. Might be more friendly to have the shadows play like real shadows (never going above the object). Source: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TV_Tropes_Flash...
I pictured looking top-down at the object, for which the shadow seemed quite natural?
Re: FourShadows.js – Time-aware algorithm driven shadows for icons
#23To be honest, this library doesn't really make sense.
Perhaps a related but more useful idea would be to adjust the colors of your site to match the user's local time like f.lux...
Re: FourShadows.js – Time-aware algorithm driven shadows for icons
#24Clever, but light comes from the sky (it always comes from the sky in nature...light from below weirds us out). It's probably poor design to have shadows rotating throughout the day. Might be more friendly to have the shadows play like real shadows (never going above the object). Source: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TV_Tropes_Flash...
I pictured looking top-down at the object, for which the shadow seemed quite natural?
Do you work with your screen laying flat, such that you're looking down on it?
I'm not being argumentative; there is a history of the "desktop" metaphor, where it did seem sort of like the user was looking down on it from above. That particular approach to the metaphor seems to have faded deep into history. Not saying it's wrong, just that we seem to have moved somewhere else with UI, and I feel like a corkboard with pieces of paper tacked to it is a more fitting analogy for the way many of our current desktops work. The way shadows are used in most current desktops match that metaphor more closely than objects on a horizontal "desk" surface. And, given that we never use screens sitting flat on a horizontal surface (even the Microsoft Surface evolved to go vertical). The ergonomics of staring straight down is pretty awful. Our heads get really heavy at that angle, causing back pain.
Edit: Some "desktop" metaphor UIs where a "top-down" light source might logically lead to OPs shadow design:
http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2006/05/...
http://kruzeniski.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/how_print_i...
Even the modern take (Bumptop for Mac) seems needlessly cluttered and cumbersome to manage. Then again, I prefer tiled interfaces, so I lean toward the extreme on the other end of the spectrum.
Re: FourShadows.js – Time-aware algorithm driven shadows for icons
#25Clever, but light comes from the sky (it always comes from the sky in nature...light from below weirds us out). It's probably poor design to have shadows rotating throughout the day. Might be more friendly to have the shadows play like real shadows (never going above the object). Source: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TV_Tropes_Flash...
This. Light from below is unnatural. Also, I think this generally would confuse users. I visit at 10AM it looks one way, I visit at 3PM it looks another, and I have no idea why as a user. Even if you paired it with other elements, you've still got the shadow all over the place. I remember about 10 years ago watching a guy in school build a site that had a header that would have full sunrise-sunset based on your time…
It would confuse users? Having a shadows on your logo that can take 4 different positions would confuse the users?