Network-Manager WEP icon not really useful

With the Tango icons, the WEP icon in Network-Manager looks like nothing known
before. I guess it's the "lock" WEP icon but it doesn't mean anything to me. I
think this icon must be set back as a lock or something similar that speaks by
itself.

I take as a comparison the Nokia 770 network manager :
- A network without icon is open
- A network with a lock is wep protected

And sometimes I see a network with a big lock with 3 key holes in it. It took me
3 seconds to guess that it must be a WPA protected network (altough I have no
confirmation for now ;-) )

Created an attachment (id=5031)
Screenshot of this case

Look at the screenshot and be honnest : could you really guess that this means
WEP encrypted wireless ?

Also discussed in Ubuntu Launchpad :
https://launchpad.net/products/tango-icon-theme/+bug/36017

Lionel, the Network manager icons are not part of tango base theme. If Ubuntu
ships these icons, file a bug against the network manager product there.

I tought it was a Tango one. Sorry for the noise.

It's this one:

daniel@bert:~/tango-icon-theme-0.7.1$ find . | grep encrypted
./scalable/status/network-wireless-encrypted.svg
./22x22/status/network-wireless-encrypted.png
./16x16/status/network-wireless-encrypted.png
daniel@bert:~/tango-icon-theme-0.7.1$

or
http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/*checkout*/tango/tango-icon-theme/scalable/status/network-wireless-encrypted.svg?rev=1.2

D'OH, this was indeed added in.

The thing with the metaphor is the following -

You're suggesting that the padlock is a well known metaphor and we shouldn't aim
to use something else that isn't well known. In tango howerevr, we tried to
avoid the floppy for save and we tried to avoid the lock for "secure"
communication.

It may be that the icon at 16x16 does not resemble a shield that well. I will
look into fixing that. But I don't like ditching the new metaphor because "it
wasn't done before". Personally I belive the shield works much better than a
padlock for this kind of stuff. I will suggest running a small test in our
usability lab to see if people have a problem identifying encrypted networks.

It could work. It's just that, honnestly, I didn't see at all that it was a
shield... Sorry for that (oooops)

Created an attachment (id=5043)
16x16 version of the wi-fi shield

Would this be more recognisable at 16x16?

Jakub, thanks a lot. This icon is indeed more recognisable than the previous one.

As a side not, I will add that I disagree with you about the metaphor. Changing
the Floppy disk metaphor was a good one because most of new users have never
seen a floppy disk. (I was astonished to see that but it's real !) Asking them
to click on a floppy-disk is a non-sens and Tango project successfully changed
that ! That a great step.

Unlike the floppy, most people have already seen a lock. I think that if you
show a lock to an user, he would think : I cannot access this unless I have the
key ! That seems a perfectly good behaviour to describe a secure wireless network.

In my mind, the shield is more a metaphor of "protecting myself". For example,
the famous McAfee Antivirus.

But it is of course only my opinion and I'm not an artist at all. You have more
experience and a whole usability lab, don't take my word too seriously ;-)

Hmm... I just showed this icon to a friend. The old one in network-manager (to
gave hime context) and the new one, telling him it will replace it.

He asked me : "Why did they put a red eye in the networks list ?"

Yes. A shield is about protection, ie, secure communication. A lock is about
access, ie, password request. These are very distinct operations. We should not
use the same icon for both. When you see a lock in an authentication request
dialog, do you automatically assume that the connection your password is being
sent over is secure, or that your password itself is securely encrypted? If you
do, then you just pointed out why exactly these need to be distinct metaphors.
Nobody said the icon in Tango was perfect. It is, however, much better than the
lock. The red radio waves to show that it is wireless, may not be the best way
to show it. Perhaps we can place an antenna icon on the shield instead. And
perhaps we could make the shield gold, rather than grey. I won't disagree that
it could perhaps use a few minor changes. However, I will strongly disagree that
it should be a lock.

I've commited the touched up 16x16 shield icon, but closing the as not a bug as we do want to stick with the shield metaphor.