Comments on: Oxygen usability icon survey

By: dersichdenwolftanzt

dersichdenwolftanzt — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:49:04 +0000

i found this survey quite….hmmm….not soo good….

- all these “which icon is a text/spreadsheet/blabla”-questions i couldnt answer cause i wasn’t able to see anything - these icons are just to small (on a 1280×1024 19” CRT)
- i often had to make a “bad” choice in that way that i wasn’t able to identify the “right” icon on a first look (as it should be IMHO), only after a careful inspection of all icons
- i found these logoff/…-icons just….XXX why three icons, which look nearly the same? horror…..

well, just my 2cent….

By: Fab

Fab — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:04:37 +0000

I’m really sorry, but most of the time the icons DID NOT FIT ALL, at least in my understanding. Apart from the already used KDE-icons there were no good alternatives. This concerns especially the file icons which I found really unconvincing.

Please reconsider using such icons for the new KDE.

By: isi

isi — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:00:19 +0000

to lock the computer there should be an icon with a lock on it
and not (-). icouldnt find an icon for spreadsheet app.

By: Fat Mobil Content » xmen lengends Oxygen usability icon survey

Fat Mobil Content » xmen lengends Oxygen usability icon survey — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 07:56:44 +0000

[...] xmen lengends OpenUsability.org has prepared an icon survey about Oxygen icons. Participating will help designers to find usability issues with the icon design development. xmen official siteread more | digg story [...]

By: Andre

Andre — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:40:59 +0000

Your MySQL server looks like it’s about to choke… I keep getting WordPress database errors trying to browse the site..

By: Snazz

Snazz — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:39:17 +0000

11. Icons 2,3,4 are all arrows pointing back. Non-KDE users don’t know which icon KDE uses in it’s various web-browsers. (Unless of course you wanted ppl to pick the ‘best’ back button?)

15, 16. Mime types icons really don’t have enough contrast, they all look washed out. Even with good eyesight I needed to squint (CRT) to differentiate the icons… And I still selected the document icon (I think) for the spreadsheet icon.

Yup, other’s have mentioned the need for an “I don’t know” option with a text entry for the user to explain the problem.

For instance on the CD burning question I would have picked “I don’t know” and explained “None of the icons really look like a CD, or CD Burning ‘thingy’”

Otherwise, a good survey.

By: Memento Diem - » Oxygen usability icon survey

Memento Diem - » Oxygen usability icon survey — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:19:03 +0000

[...] (via David) [...]

By: Shulai

Shulai — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:23:51 +0000

Icons are too small and blurry even wearing glasses (that I do not use most of the time). Try them with xmag (cheater! ;-) and you realize they are close to meaningless icon gathers.
I’m not sure how useful such a survey could be when icons are so small, most of the time smaller than in any real world use (besides in some toolbars). I wasn’t able to chose any spreadsheet icon, and was doubtful chosing the archive icon.

Your work is beautiful, but photorealism is not helpful at that scale, I guess some enhance filters could be useful if possible (I neither know if icons are meant always to be svg-rendered on the fly, and if such filtering facilities are available in on the fly rendering).

By: Robert Knight

Robert Knight — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:00:05 +0000

Okay, decided to add my comments here:

Q.7 - The position of the button to open a list of all applications is a more important indicator to me than the icon used. I expect ( based on experience with Windows, KDE and Gnome ) for the icon to be in one of the screen’s corners. In the case of Windows, the bottom-left corner. I voted for the KDE icon purely because I prefer it aesthetically.

Q.8 (CD Burning) The first three icons clearly have nothing to do with CDs. The last two are clearly meant as images for a CD burning program. Unfortunately the 4th icon ( red CD with flames on ) does not resemble a CD closely because of the 3D raised border. The fifth icon ( CD with flames underneath ) is probably the best, but it is hard to make out the outline of the CD against a white background.

Q.10 (Web Browsing Icon) I picked blue globe with no extras around the edge. I am really not keen on the gear teeth around the Konqueror icon. I would prefer a larger globe, perhaps with elements of the main KDE icon in the middle.

Q.11 I would like to see distinct colors for the Back/Forwards arrows compared to the rest of the icons which are normally positioned next to them in web browsing applications. Green is often used as a symbolic color for going to places. It is easier to pick out an icon like this than the current Konqueror defaults which have six icons of identical color in the main toolbar.

Q.15. It is difficult to make out the cells in the spreadsheet icon at the small size presented.

Q.17 As per Q.15, it is difficult to identify the file-type icons at such a small size. Perhaps better use of colour would help.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:54:03 +0000

A lot of the icons were nice, but here are my concerns:

1) None of the file icons really seemed to fit as a “spreadsheet”. The icon I chose was what I thought looked closet to a spreadsheet (but could also have been a plaintext file).

2) None of the options for the IM app really suggest instant messaging to me. I chose the kopete icon only because I’m used to it.

3) Same for the web browser.

3) The shutdown-related icons are just horrible. None of them (with the possible exception of the ( | ) icon, which I chose as shutdown) clearly demonstrated their purpose