Solar shading devices are essential for ensuring thermal and visual comfort inside highly glazed office buildings. A visual contact with the outside through the shading devices provides essential signals to the occupant about his environment. The objective of this study is to evaluate the visual contact with the outside through different types of shading devices. This paper presents the preliminary results of a first campaign realized on nine fabrics of different colors and openness factors. Fabrics were evaluated by fourteen human subjects in two outdoor test cells by means of questionnaires. Results clearly show the preponderant impact of the openness factor and color of the fabrics on the visual contact with the outside. A dark-colored fabric with openness factor of 3% shows similar performance as a light-colored fabric with openness factor of 10%. It was also observed that the classification method according to the European standard EN 14501 presents some limitations for an accurate evaluation of the visual contact with the outside through fabrics, in particular those with low openness factors. Further steps of the project are explained.