[ubuntu-art] Some criticism

Tue Nov 13 20:08:54 GMT 2007

Hi everyone,

I agree with Carlos opinion about the visibility of the icons, they´re so hard to find and to "know" what they represent, only with soh much attention and pacience you can understand what the icon represents.

We need to create something (color, graphics or other solutions) to make those icons distinguishable to each one.

Cheers,
Dalton

> 
> Hopefully constructive criticism, though I'm not sure about the
> timing in terms of any upcoming changes.  Anyway...
> 
> I think my biggest complaint about the look of Ubuntu's interface
> (the default GNOME, of course --- don't know about KDE, and
> sorry to be blunt, but could not care any less about KDE) is the
> "unicolor-ism" of the icons.  Color is an incredibly powerful and
> efficient mechanism to convey information, and it is IMHO being
> sacrificed.
> 
> Perhaps the most extreme example is the Emblems --- in the
> "Emblems" tab in the Properties window for a folder or a file,
> I see a bunch of little orange things, all close to identical to each
> other, and only distinguishable by taking a very close look at
> them --- same size, same color, same shape  (orange, round);
> plus they're flat --- when you introduce "full-color" to the icons,
> you can even include 3D touches.
> 
> An example:  I open the Emblems screen and you ask me to find
> the camera icon, and it would take me 5, or 10, or 15 seconds;
> why?  I would have to go and carefully inspect each of the icons.
> It's akin to searching for a specific word in a paragraph.
> 
> I have a Fedora box right here next to my main, Ubuntu one, and
> the same exercise only requires looking in the general direction
> of the window where the icons are --- the camera is so obvious
> that it's like I simply take a glance at the screen, and the camera
> "calls me".  Another dramatic example is the "Oh no!" icon.  So
> extremely and instantaneously obvious to my eyes in the full-
> color Fedora emblems;  flat round orange thing with some white
> lines in it (which is to say identical to every single other one) in
> the Ubuntu emblems
> 
> Another extremely dramatic example --- I just did the experiment
> and the result was shocking even to myself  (and really, I'm being
> honest --- if not fully unbiased, I'm really being as honest as possible
> with the test, being the subject myself).
> 
> I see the "Shared" icon in Fedora (it simply "jumped" to my eyes),
> so I figured, let's see how long it takes me to locate it in the Ubuntu
> screen;  I extended the window so that *all* the available Emblems
> fit within it, with no scroll.
> 
> After some 10 seconds of visual inspection, I concluded that the
> Shared icon is not there.  I only discovered that the icon was there
> when I went one by one **reading** the caption below the icons.
> Yes, perhaps to a certain extent, I was looking for a hand, but not
> consciously --- I know that the drawings are not the same;  I was
> just going through the icons trying to identify the "Shared" (and
> I did stop at a couple of them, to then conclude that no, it wasn't
> that one).
> 
> I then asked my wife to do the same --- without showing her the
> "Shared" icon in Fedora (to avoid biasing her), it took her some
> 15 seconds to tell me hat the Shared icon was not there;  and
> that is because I had to ask her to refrain from reading the
> captions, because while she was looking for it, she was reading
> the captions of each and every one of them.
> 
> I know that the relevance of the above task is secondary --- the
> more important one is that if I see that icon, do I quickly identify
> it as the "Shared" icon?  The answer is, maybe yes;  but still, if
> I see a screen with 20 folders, each of them with a different emblem,
> then I will definitely have to go one by one carefully inspecting
> them.  Let's say that it is quite shocking the fact that *reading*
> the caption on a "going one by one" basis gave me a more accurate
> result than the visual inspection.  You know, so much for "an
> image is worth a thousand words" !!
> 
> Other details/pitfalls coming from the lack of color (the lack of
> "multi-color", that is):
> 
> 1) The icon "photos" is easily mistaken for a folder  (as is the
>     "images" icon).
> 2) The icon "unreadable" is easily mistaken for a mail envelope
> 3) The icon "multimedia" looks more like a staircase to me.
> 4) How on earth would anyone expect the "distinguished" icon
>     to be interpreted properly?
> 
> I guess you could still try to keep a theme consistent with the
> "human" aspect --- do not restrict, but at least *favor* earth
> colors (green, brown, white, cleaf, etc.).
> 
> Maybe, if you must avoid the "full-color"  (which really, I see
> no reason why anyone would), then perhaps using the three
> basic Ubuntu colors (the logo colors --- read, yellow, orange),
> maybe there could be some additional visual information, no?
> 
> If I'm completely missing something like the set of icons being
> configurable, I certainly would appreciate being shown/told
> how to do that --- but still my complaint would remain active
> in that the default choice of icons would be sub-optimal.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Carlos
> --
> 
> 
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