Is not clear enough when an application has information or not

[Christian Giordano]

The difference of colour between the two states of the arrow on the left of a Launcher tile is not big enough. The colour of the default state is grey, not white. When a message is received, instead, the colour is light blue. With Skype, probably because of an optical illusion, the left arrow when in default state seems already slightly tint of blue, looks almost if there might be a message left by someone.

Possible solutions:
1) Drop the colour on the Launcher arrows (pips)
2) Use a more different colour

[Christian Giordano (nuthinking)]

To prove my point, here an animation where the pip fades from our light blue to white: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2935618/canonical/launcher/pips-color-not-visible.html

The change is imperceptible.

[Charline Poirier (charlinepoirier)]

The problem of identifying which applications are running by looking at the Launcher has been reported repeatedly in testing in October 2010, April 2011, October 2011 and March 2012. Some participants did not notice the arrows because they were too small and understated beside the colorful icons; others noticed the small arrows but were not able to infer what they meant. Participants suggested that numbers would be clearer and more visible.

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

Unfortunately, I share the exact same view as you do. Unfortunately x2, it's even more of a headache in 14.04. It seems as if the icons were switched to SVG to allow for better scaling on HiDPI screens, but at the expense of the pips being much smaller than before and the highlights of the icons being almost identical from their idle state.

I reported my own bug report and haven't had that much activity on it, granted it's still a young report, although it's been listed as 'low importance', which of course given the fact there's little/no way to decipher an icon's status, this has me a little concerned to say the very least. Still crossing my fingers there...

Here are some examples in 14.04 with Skype in particular:

http://oi62.tinypic.com/nxjgh3.jpg

http://oi59.tinypic.com/21mi1w0.jpg

From bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1304073

See how there's literally no difference? It's such a minor difference it's difficult to see even when you're actively watching the icon switch back and forth, let alone having to look at an icon when you get back to your computer to quickly see "does this application need attention?" As it stands now, it's clearly a broken feature as it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference.

Hopeful that there's a quick resolution. I'd certainly hate to see the next LTS be stuck with something like this throughout its cycle.

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

Not sure why this is listed as incomplete, but surely this is something that should be addressed as it's a bit inconsistent from an aesthetics standpoint. It's the little things that matter, and having the colors too closely matched is absolutely not acceptable by the vast majority of users out there. It's just too similar to tell apart. There needs to be a way to quickly and easily identify the application that needs attention.

For an idea, check out elementary OS. Their "pip" dots on their dock turn a bright red. Very easy to tell apart. Light sky blue and white, not so much.