The book about setting it up yourself
— so the software looks the way you can see it best
You cannot break anything. Everything can be put back.
You should not have to get used to it
Most software at work is something you get used to. The buttons are too small, the text is too small, and the menu sits somewhere you never look. You work it out because you have to — and then you spend three years getting used to something nobody asked you about.
Here it is the other way around. You decide how it looks, and you do it in one place: Settings, then Appearance.
And you cannot break anything
Every choice applies to your own screen only. Your colleague sees theirs, and your manager sees theirs. Nothing is deleted, nothing disappears from the menu, and you can put it back right away.
The cards in the workshop are the real page, in miniature. So you see your change before you choose it — not a picture of how it once looked.
This is where you turn the knobs
Do you know the feeling when a setting is three menus deep, and you dare not touch it because you do not know what it does? So you leave it alone, and the software stays exactly as it was.
The workshop shows you the page itself instead. Each card is the real surface in miniature, and you can click inside it.
Scroll down to Appearance. Pick a card, and watch the rest of the page change right away.
The buttons as they are
Do you know the feeling of wearing gloves and missing the button? Or not being able to tell whether it was pressed? Flat buttons look good in an office and are hard work in a basement with a single fluorescent tube.
This is what the default looks like. It is called «Like today», and it is the starting point — not a choice somebody made for you.
Look at the buttons on this page. The next spread is the same page with one choice changed.
Or buttons that stand up
It is the same page. Same text, same places, same everything. The only thing that changed is one choice in the workshop.
«Raised buttons» gives every button an edge and a shadow, so it stands up from the page — and sinks when you press it. In gloves, or up in a lift with the sun on your screen, that is often the difference between hitting it and missing it.
There are seven kinds to choose from: «Like today», «Raised buttons», «Pills», «Icon tiles», «Blocks», «Soft tiles» and «Copper edge».
Pull the page together
Do you know the feeling of a line of text running all the way across a wide screen? The eye loses the line on the way back, and you read the same sentence twice without meaning to.
You choose how wide the page is allowed to be — eight steps, from the whole screen down to less than a third. The menu stays where it is; it is the content that pulls together.
If you have a big screen at the office and a small one in the van, those are two different choices. Both are yours.
The menu can move
Do you know the feeling of reaching up for a menu all day? Or hunting for the same button every time, because it sits somewhere you do not look?
The menu can sit at the top, in a rail along the side, as a narrow strip of icons, or down in a dock. Eight places, and ten ways to put the top bar together.
And here is the rule that matters most: nothing disappears. An item can change place — it can never be taken away. If you have chosen one look and your manager another, you can both still find the same things.
Text you can read
Do you know the feeling of reading the same line three times? One in seven adults in Denmark reads with difficulty, and most have learned to hide it. At work, nobody says the text is hard.
Reading mode switches to a typeface made for reading with difficulty, gives full contrast and more air between the lines, and turns off italics and capitals.
Press «Aa» in the bar. You can put it back right away, and nobody can see that you chose it.
The colours are yours
Do you know the feeling of a screen that is fine indoors and useless in the sun? Or of bright software that stings your eyes when you sit in a basement all day?
There are 37 colour sets to choose from, and 19 of them are dark — «Workshop Blue», «Steel & Concrete», «Chalk & Board», «Oak & Canvas», and «Standard» if you just want paper and copper.
You change it in one place, and the whole house follows. Each trade keeps its own colour.
