Hey Igor,

You are so right—I’ve utterly failed to mention contrast at all in the post, shame on me :( I think my main point is that when you try to apply colors and shades to UI design it is useful to keep in mind any physical metaphors that you may be implementing, such as buttons and tabs, which are being borrowed from the real world and so work best when you create a basic 3D illusion and feel. Making the active tab high contrast and dark will work at bringing your attention to it, and will make it perfectly usable—but it will also make it feel a little less real. Making buttons and tabs lighter will make them fit more in place, but for them to work you need to achieve the right level of contrast between them and the other elements—so the window texture the button is sitting on will need to be dark enough for the button to stand out.

I’ve had a look at your site and it looks like a great resource. Thanks a lot for the links. I think many readers (including myself) will find them very useful. I really like the article about the phone backlights, as I had a Nokia phone with a similar problem—though not as severe :)