[Wing, P4350 ROM development] quicksite:
MY EDITORIAL -- on design choices and aesthetics

But themes should be just that -- themes, shouldn't they? They exist obviously because people's tastes vary considerably based on any number of criteria... for example there might be visibility reasons why someone mighty like those colored icons. Personally, having come from design, marketing, and filmmaking professuions, I think that it is a mistake each and every time someone makes an aesthetic judgment overruling others, unless something is being offered as a work of art, in which case the absolute expression of every aspect of the object or subject is part of an overall statement -- and such statements are never meant to be adapted for individual use. .

Here's what I mean more specifically: Nobody I know of would question an author/ or app-maker's complete and total prerogative to use anything they saw fit, particularly when said author is doing something without pay, and making the end product available to others for free. Translated: Ivan should do whatever he prefers since it's his ROM and he is simply sharing it. (I really do hold to that thinking)

The only thing I would ask is that there be no constraints that in any way restrict the normal ability for people to retheme as they like, again for any number of reasons -- be they aesthetic or functional or both. It's taken me over 2 years at XDA just to try to deconstruct and understand all the elements and control-mechanisms for the task bar, the menus, the fonts, the colors... all of which seems absurd to me from a functional design perspective. It's either the result of more bad engineering from Microsoft, neglecting usability concerns, or it's just too hard for them to construct a interface that has clearly defined parts & controls.

I feel like I have wasted hundreds of hours of my life just trying to bend and compensate for these huge design flaws in Windows Mobile, which finally became naked for the world to see once iphone was released and kicked their sorry engineering asses. Tiny type and micro-target areas that require a pinpoint stylus press -- not as all congruent with the idea of a touchscreen.

I've tried QuickMenu, registry changes, HTC Big menu, rhodium menu, TSK files, extracting elements from M2D themes, RC Mod, tracking down VGA to QVGA solutions. ALL of this just to use a phone safely in a car... Something I used to be able to do with a 6 year old clamshell Samsung, but ever since having a touchscreen for 5 years, it's all been mind-numbingly nuts: All this power at one fingertips, yet essential functions like dialing numbers to make a phone call are fraught with landmines of touching the wrong space, invoking a menu that you have to un-invoke, device touches your ear and call is put on hold, or muted.

I'm just saying, in the final analysis, you've done such an excellent job making this phone work optimally.. please give people the hooks/options/means to chnage themes if they like. In which case, I strongly urge you to make it exactly as you like it; you are customer #1. But no one's design opinion, including my own know-it-all comments (!) should be deemed correct. These are personal preference issues.

/editorial ... Hope you can see where I am coming from.