Comment 95 for bug 407621
Revision history for this message
| Vish (vish) wrote Re: [Bug 407621] Re: (design decision) Icons missing from context menu , dialogue buttons , firefox bookmark favicons, system menu | #95 |
On Sun, 2009-10-25 at 15:09 +0000, Andreas Nilsson wrote:
> I agree with this change, but this is not a election, so I don't think
> those kind of comments adds any additional value to the bug report.
>
>
> #80 "...and makes other menus cute again"
> A cute looking Operating System is not something I think we should strive for. Cute stuff could make you forgive the OS easier (like the stupid Sony robot), but a professional looking one will make you trust it to begin with.
>
@Andreas Nilsson:
I agree that we should strive forward for a professional looking OS.
Also agree that the *present* haphazard arrangement ,of icons and no
icons in menu, makes the menu look a bit incomplete.
I wouldnt say that icons are just for cuteness though. And stripping
down *all* the icons doesnt necessarily make OS professional.
Icons are very useful for quick navigation , of the menus , as they can
catch the attention more easily. And as the saying goes... a picture is
worth a thousand words.... ;p
Flipping the gconf only hides the problem of the haphazard menu items ,
Until the guidelines are finalized.
Quoting mpt from the usability mailing list:
"... Even then, I think icons should either be used for every item in a section
(between the end of a menu and a separator, or between two menu separators),.."
But such a cleanup of the menus and icons would be a much harder
process, and making a guideline even tougher , than just flipping a
gconf. A fair trade-off for the time-being, i guess ;)
On a sidenote:
The design team seems to have observed ,during user testing , whether
lack of icons made it harder to use the shutdown menu. And had not seen
any indications of difficulty using the menu without icons...
[ I *suspect* that such tests were only conducted in users either new to
Ubuntu OS or are new computer users]
Such a test , would be a highly biased test and not a
reasonable/reliable indicator of the usefulness or need for the icons.
- Any new user would *always* read the menu option listed and not
initially depend on the icon.
Icons become more recognizable over a period of usage and help navigate
quicker only when a user is familiar with the system, rather than
initially.