[Qgis-developer] New Icons - difficult to "read"

Antonio Locandro antoniolocandro at hotmail.com
Tue May 28 08:45:30 PDT 2013


Just to reinforce the point raised
The pan icon currently in Master are four arrows which are more associated with moving a graphic or a nudge, I would think the most well known symbol for that would be the famous little hand to pan

Cheers
 
Ing. Antonio Locandro
Tegucigalpa, Honduras

From: jonathanmoules at warwickshire.gov.uk
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 15:55:17 +0100
To: anitagraser at gmx.at
CC: qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Qgis-developer] New Icons - difficult to "read"

Hi Anita,I think we have to be fair and recognize that a GIS is a little more complex than a web browser and will always have more buttons. Many functions which have only one meaning in a simpler application can have different meanings in a GIS depending on context. To simply assume the context from the placement in a certain toolbar could raise other issues. 


Fair point, but that's why I also compared other GIS's where I could (ArcGIS, MapModeller (FME Data Inspector uses the refresh circle but doesn't have a back/forward feature) and noted that they hold the same convention.

Also, that was only one single example, there are others.These days people *expect* certain icons for certain things. To use a different icon throws away the years of pre-training the user will have already have using other applications that stuck to the convention.



I don't think I've ever seen a single application that had 10 icons that were mostly the same before in the same that the magnifying glass ones in QGIS 2.0 are.
Regards,

Jonathan

On 28 May 2013 11:11, Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at> wrote:


Hi,

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Jonathan Moules <jonathanmoules at warwickshire.gov.uk> wrote:



+1 for unified data adding button. From a use-perspective there's no good reason that raster adding should be separate from vectors for instance



In depth example: take the Back, Next, and Refresh view icons. The new QGIS icons all have a magnifying glass behind them (I can barely make out the "refresh" circle). Why? In comparison, I have four web-browsers in front of me, all have these buttons and all of them are simple arrows/refresh circles. None of them have a picture of a web-page behind them.




ArcGIS and MapModeller both use simple arrows/circles too. MapInfo doesn't seem to have this functionality. At this point these icons are standard conventions, but the QGIS 2.0 iconography makes that part only 1/6th of the actual icon, instead giving prominence to a magnifying glass that's entirely unnecessary.



While I agree to some degree (+1 for unified data adding button), I think we have to be fair and recognize that a GIS is a little more complex than a web browser and will always have more buttons. Many functions which have only one meaning in a simpler application can have different meanings in a GIS depending on context. To simply assume the context from the placement in a certain toolbar could raise other issues. 



Best wishes,Anita 

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