[ubuntu-art] Apport icons -- merely some ideas

[Alex Jones]

We could re-use the icon that's used for the "Force Quit" GNOME Panel
applet, the picture of a window with a big crack down it. I think that
signifies "broken program" as well as anything else could.

On Sat, 2007-02-10 at 12:14 +0200, Donn wrote:
> Hi,
> Thanks for your great feedback.
> > I've tried the icon on my boyfriend, and he was totally clueless; he
> > offered possibilities such as "notepad", or "drawing", but he did not
> > guess what the bug meant in the first place. It is not a statistically
> > meaningful experiment, but he's an architect used to computers --
> > *windows* computers, unfortunately ;-).
> You are correct, for example I cannot imagine what someone in Thailand thinks 
> of a 'bug' or someone in Sweden, etc. I was basing it on my point of view and 
> also on the computer "culture" where there are several memes 
> like "bugs", "windows", "cursors" and so on, however you are quite correct 
> that they are all English words. It's amazing, to me, to hear about the 
> word "fallos" -- I made the automatic assumption that a picture of a bug 
> would translate in anyone's mind into the same meme.
> 
> Wow, what to do ...?
> 
> How would we universally express the concept of "program error report"?
> 
> Perhaps we would find that it is not possible. I have argued before (it might 
> have been this list) that all artwork should be based on the *locale*. This 
> makes the task much larger, icons for everything would have to be 
> independently created for every language, but I think it could be faced, and 
> made quite efficient -- perhaps only a small percentage of icons will end-up 
> being confusing, like my "bug" icon was.
> 
> <mad idea>
> Perhaps a website could be started where people could "vote" for their 
> favourite icons in each locale. We would present whatever icons we have now, 
> and whatever new ones artists want to quickly sketch. The idea would be to 
> see which symbols represent which concepts in the minds of the audiences of 
> each language. We could have categories (translated, natch) in each locale 
> with concepts like:
> "file", "folder", "mouse", "open", "close", "new", "delete", "create", "error", "mail" 
> and so on -- covering the basic verb/noun ground of what computers and 
> application let us do. After that we can realistically begin to produce icons 
> that actually speak to the people who will use them.
> </mad idea>
> 
> > Again, I insist that the icons are very well done and I do find them cute.
> And thanks for your input.
> 
> Donn
> 
> -- 
> Once you start believing in things for which there's no evidence, where do you 
> stop?
> -- Sackett http://forums.randi.org
> 
> 
-- 
Alex Jones
http://alex.weej.com/