The panel for KDE 4.3 (RC2 / RC3) will not likely pass accessibility standards for contrast. The font is too small and the contrast between the font and the background is poor. It is very difficult to read and I would consider this a barrier for people to properly give KDE a try.

The selected window barely passes accessibility, and the non-selected ones will fail miserably. There are tools out there to test contrast.

Also, I am surprised that the panel doesnt seem to have a transparancy option. I had a mainly black photo as a background and figured maybe it was just for me... but I changed the background and the problem still exists.

Just a thought to increase the contrast.

This seems like a usability issue, so you may wish to discuss with the Usability people ( #kde-usability on Freenode ) and the Plasma people ( plasma-devel@kde.org, #plasma on Freenode ).

Transparency is not available unless you have compositing enabled.

Transparency is not available unless you have compositing enabled.

That is too bad. I know a few people who would appreciate that feature.