Question

This is an interesting conundrum.

We have a WPF app that has a Vista-like theme using soft pastels, Aero control templates, etc. What we’ve noticed is that this UI appears incredibly washed out on low quality LCDs. Is there a way to boost color saturation application-wide or are we at the mercy of bad monitors? Can we even tell, programmatically if we’re being displayed on a low quality monitor?

EDIT:

Basically, these answers are what I wanted someone to confirm, without me leading people to say them! It was a management decision higher than me to go with this appearance and I needed some corroboration.

Thanks everyone!

Answer 1

You chose a bad palette.

Do some work on the UI; introduce more natural contrast.

You wouldn’t want to add programming to work around the bad palette choice, even if you could.

Just change the colors.