"Compose a new message", "Reply", "Reply to all" and "Forward" icons in Evolution are confusing

[Jan Nekvasil]

Considering common used standards, new humanity icons for "Reply", "Reply to all" and "Forward" in Evolution are very confusing.

The situation looks (very simplified) like this:

     Std: New:
New: M* M+
Re: <- ->
ReA: <> >>
Fwd: -> ^

I tested this new icon set on few people today, and everybody was very confused about meaning of new symbols. Here is the sum of their opinions (including my own):

- "M+" instead of "M*" look more like "Add a new message on the pile" rather than "Compose a new message"
- "->" instead of "<-" looks more like "Forward" rather than "Reply"
- ">>" instead of "<>" looks more like some unknown action (quick forward? registered letter?) rather than "Reply to all"
- "^" instead of "->" looks more like "Send a message to your boss/God" instead of "Forward"

[Jan Nekvasil (jan-nekvasil)]

Launchpad messed up my "table" a little, so once again in monospace:

      Std: New:
New: M* M+
Re: <- ->
ReA: <> >>
Fwd: -> ^

[Jan Nekvasil (jan-nekvasil)]

I'm not sure if "Wishlist" is the appropriate importance level. It's a pretty serious usability bug — it goes against everything that users are used to, and there is no explanation given for that step. Why is this way better? How this change improves user's experience?

See attached image for comparison with other e-mail clients / icon sets.

[Vish (vish)]

Most importantly there are _no standards_ for any mail icons or that the arrow to the left is reply and to right is forward. [if there is such a standard kindly point me to it, as I'm truly unaware]
For ex: check google , gmail has arrow to left for reply while googlewave uses the arrow to the right for reply.
Why would they have done so within a single company? Or since googlewave is newer , is the new standard for "reply" an arrow to the right?
And double arrow[ << ] is used for reply-to-all in gmail too. What are users confusing that icon for ?

How is the M* sane to be used for both "new mail received in inbox" and "Compose/Create new mail" ? That's what several themes do. But, it isnt right just because several earlier did it.

Every app/theme does it accordingly , to maintain consistency within the theme/app.

Gnome icon theme uses the * for "create new" , for all folder/files hence they have done the same for the mail icon too. Not for standards , but to maintain consistency within the theme.

The "M+" is done to keep it consistent throughout the humanity theme for creating anything new. Check create folder/file/tab/window all have the + sign. Anything the user creates new , uses the + sign.

We are trying to keep consistency within the theme. Hence the emblems are placed at the lower-right too.

We already have arrows pointing in almost every direction for the mail icons , send is North , receive is South , reply is East.
Now is it worth adding a new direction for forward? Is a _new_ user going to instantly recognize the arrow to the left as reply and right as forward ?
So, what has been done here is, to keep the forward icon similar to the send . And reduce the arrow directions. [forward is nothing but a simple send-what-i-have-just-received]

And there is no rule that we have to stick to every other icon theme out there.

>> It's a pretty serious usability bug [...] and there is no explanation given for that step.
I gave no explanation since ,I didnt want to participate in a rant which seems less likely to be a serious bug report...
This report seems more "made up" than a real usability issue.
It is hard to take a report seriously when you claim that the opinions generated include " Send a message to your boss/God " .
But when I hear such false claims of having tested with others , it seems the tests were run either on people trapped in an imaginary world or with an IQ level equivalent of a 4yrs old. Or maybe you have tested it on children? For them, there is the gartoon-icon-theme. BTW , what did they confuse the send-receive icon for???
I'm not saying that what has been done here in humanity is absolutely correct. If you want to be taken seriously be genuine.

It is a change that some people might need to get adjusted to. But we are trying to keep it consistent within the humanity theme and reduce complexity
Change is not bad , its because we fear change that we still use the QWERTY keyboards.!

But i do like the idea of using double mail envelopes for reply to all. Hence I'v had left this as a wishlist. I might get to doing that later. The rest I'm inclined to say is a "wont fix" unle...

[Jan Nekvasil (jan-nekvasil)]

Please, accept my apology for my bug report being rant a little. It was not meant to be rude, and I appreciate Your work on Humanity icon theme (which is in my opinion one of the best I have seen yet). And You are right, there are no given standards for arrows directions on the mail related icons.

But my claim on testing the new icons on the others is not false at all. I asked a couple of my co-workes (both tech and sales) and my wife at home. They were all confused about meaning of the symbols, some completely (the Outlook users), some less (my wife). Maybe if we can throw some icons usability testing like the KDE guys did for KMail (http://www.opensource-usability-labs.com/kde/2009/12/09/participate-icons-of-kde-sc-put-to-the-test-kmail-part-1/) and gain some publicity for it, we would be able to see what more people are thinking about it. Change is not bad, but what the users are used to needs to be taken in consideration if the main goal are the users, not the consistency only.

Double mail envelopes for "Reply to all" sounds like a great idea to me. Interesting approach to this icon is taken in this icon set: http://www.aha-soft.com/stock-icons/e-mail-icons.htm (googled out at random, not my secret favorite) - two envelopes with north pointing arrow wrapped around them (the "Reply" icon is similar). All actions which have something to do with sending have the arrow pointing in the same direction then.

Again, my apologies for original report. I obviously failed to be funny, as my co-workers were when they judged the icons (boss/God thing and such). If I reduce this to main issue only, it's the "Reply" and "Reply to all" icons which can be misunderstood for something else.

Thanks for understanding

Jan

[Vish (vish)]

Hmm , i used the double mail envelopes for copy :(

I'll try to think of something different ...

[Luca Ferretti (elle.uca)]

Vish, there was a proposal[1] in Tango universe about metaphors to use for basic icons, in order to make them cross-desktop, cross-theme recognizable. Could be good revamp that project.

A personal note, different people I know found the 10.04 reply/forward icons misleading :(
Including myself :)

[1] http://tango.freedesktop.org/Icon_Metaphors

[Vish (vish)]

Hmm, was busy last cycle and dint have time for this bug.. I'll try to fix this for Natty..

Luca, ths for the link.. was there a proposal for the mail-forward, there seems to be no resolution there? All I see is:
mail-reply-all Two arrows curling back
mail-reply-sender One arrow curling back

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package humanity-icon-theme - 0.5.3.5

---------------
humanity-icon-theme (0.5.3.5) natty; urgency=low

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  * Update 64px user-trash-full closer to 48px icon; (LP: #594177)
  * Update 16px search icon to not look like a radio menu dot; (LP: #662575)
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 -- K Vishnoo Charan Reddy <email address hidden> Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:30:12 -0530