Gear icon maybe too subtle

[Jonathan Lange]

I actually didn't realize you could customize visible information on the bug listing pages until I actually re-read Dan H-G's post about it. It took me a while, even then, to figure out that there was a gear icon I could click.

I could understand that this bug might be a matter of opinion.

[Matthew Revell (matthew.revell)]

This came up in one session during our paper prototyping but hasn't since, until now. We didn't revisit it as it didn't come out as a problem for everyone.

I'm going to ask Huw and Dan to come back with some suggestion for what we can do to make it more discoverable without making it stick out nastily on the page.

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

FWIW, I think this should be won't fix. The gear is subtle, but it is as yet unused on Launchpad. It is a pretty common web theme for this sort of interaction. As the gear icon gets used on Launchpad more, the subtleness will decrease. We could also look at pulling the icon into the page header as other sites do, but until each page as some sort of config like this, it doesn't make sense to do that.

I'll leave the bug open a bit for discussion to continue, but I'm inclined to close this one.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

I think the gear icon is pretty nice, but it's way more muted than
Launchpad's current general theme: approximately nothing else is that
shade of grey that's not disabled.

For instance, looking just above the gear I see disabled
"first/prev/next/last" links and below it I see inactive flame icons.

Active controls are generally blue or green and even fairly pointless
passive control get more colourful icons, like the clock next to the
date, or the box-and-cd next to the package name.

I think Launchpad ought to be more thoughtful and economical in use of
bright colors, but compared to the current theme the icon is too
subtle. You could just make the outer border blue or green.

[Huw Wilkins (huwshimi)]

We could move this icon back to the left side of the box it currently sits in (just to the left of "Order by..."). That way it would be within people's scanning vision a lot more.

Another option is to make the icon more bold. At the moment it is quite a light grey, but we could do something like put it in a darker box and invert it.

Of those two I would favour moving it to the left.

[Jonathan Lange (jml)]

Here are some ideas on how to make it more obvious:

  * increase the vertical whitespace between the number of results & first/prev/next/last links and the header row of the bugs table
  * or between the search box and the number of results
  * invert the colours of the gear cell so the background is grey and the gear outline is white
  * make it a little bit bigger inside its box
  * make the border of the gear a little more solid & black
  * have it change colour when the mouse moves over it

I agree with Martin's general point about Launchpad's palette.

[Dan Harrop-Griffiths (danhg)]

Hi All,

For me a quick win in terms of usability would be to make the cog bold
and thus more prominent.

Could someone please action this?

My Best,

Dan

On 28 November 2011 09:42, Jonathan Lange <email address hidden> wrote:
> Here are some ideas on how to make it more obvious:
>
>  * increase the vertical whitespace between the number of results & first/prev/next/last links and the header row of the bugs table
>  * or between the search box and the number of results
>  * invert the colours of the gear cell so the background is grey and the gear outline is white
>  * make it a little bit bigger inside its box
>  * make the border of the gear a little more solid & black
>  * have it change colour when the mouse moves over it
>
> I agree with Martin's general point about Launchpad's palette.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/894729
>
> Title:
>  Gear icon maybe too subtle
>
> Status in Launchpad itself:
>  Triaged
>
> Bug description:
>  I actually didn't realize you could customize visible information on
>  the bug listing pages until I actually re-read Dan H-G's post about
>  it. It took me a while, even then, to figure out that there was a gear
>  icon I could click.
>
>  I could understand that this bug might be a matter of opinion.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/894729/+subscriptions
>

[Matthew Revell (matthew.revell)]

Deryck makes a good point that this is a common icon to use for a config link. As such, I see no reason to change the use of a cog.

I think we could make it a bit more obvious, though.

Huw, I agree that popping it over on the left by order-by would make it easier to spot.

What do you make of Martin's suggestion about the colour?

I'm assuming, Huw, you can do this without taking time from the Orange team. Is that right?

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

I'm fine to let Huw and the product team sort this out, but I think it should be LOW priority. It's certainly not something the Orange squad is going to block finishing the feature on.

[Dan Harrop-Griffiths (danhg)]

Would it be worth doing a quick user survey with two simple mock-up's
left v right? If the scores are inconclusive, we may as well leave it
where it is, but if 'left' is a winner, we could then implement the
swop over.

Dan

On 13 December 2011 17:08, Matthew Revell <email address hidden> wrote:
> Deryck makes a good point that this is a common icon to use for a config
> link. As such, I see no reason to change the use of a cog.
>
> I think we could make it a bit more obvious, though.
>
> Huw, I agree that popping it over on the left by order-by would make it
> easier to spot.
>
> What do you make of Martin's suggestion about the colour?
>
> I'm assuming, Huw, you can do this without taking time from the Orange
> team. Is that right?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/894729
>
> Title:
>  Gear icon maybe too subtle
>
> Status in Launchpad itself:
>  Triaged
>
> Bug description:
>  I actually didn't realize you could customize visible information on
>  the bug listing pages until I actually re-read Dan H-G's post about
>  it. It took me a while, even then, to figure out that there was a gear
>  icon I could click.
>
>  I could understand that this bug might be a matter of opinion.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/894729/+subscriptions

[Dan Harrop-Griffiths (danhg)]

I agree with Deryck here, the current cog is findable and useable.
It's location or shade hasn't really come up as an issue in any of the
rounds of testing. However I do believe it'd be better if it was
bolder in terms of best practice, and I'd be interested to see if
people preferred it on the left or right from a usability point of
view.

Dan

On 13 December 2011 17:11, Deryck Hodge <email address hidden> wrote:
> I'm fine to let Huw and the product team sort this out, but I think it
> should be LOW priority.  It's certainly not something the Orange squad
> is going to block finishing the feature on.
>
> ** Changed in: launchpad
>   Importance: High => Low
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/894729
>
> Title:
>  Gear icon maybe too subtle
>
> Status in Launchpad itself:
>  Triaged
>
> Bug description:
>  I actually didn't realize you could customize visible information on
>  the bug listing pages until I actually re-read Dan H-G's post about
>  it. It took me a while, even then, to figure out that there was a gear
>  icon I could click.
>
>  I could understand that this bug might be a matter of opinion.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/894729/+subscriptions

[Dan Harrop-Griffiths (danhg)]

(Sorry if my emails look a bit disjointed, I have a bit of a delay
with receiving emails at the moment)

On 13 December 2011 17:38, Dan Harrop-Griffiths <email address hidden> wrote:
> I agree with Deryck here, the current cog is findable and useable.
> It's location or shade hasn't really come up as an issue in any of the
> rounds of testing. However I do believe it'd be better if it was
> bolder in terms of best practice, and I'd be interested to see if
> people preferred it on the left or right from a usability point of
> view.
>
> Dan
>
> On 13 December 2011 17:11, Deryck Hodge <email address hidden> wrote:
>> I'm fine to let Huw and the product team sort this out, but I think it
>> should be LOW priority.  It's certainly not something the Orange squad
>> is going to block finishing the feature on.
>>
>> ** Changed in: launchpad
>>   Importance: High => Low
>>
>> --
>> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>> report.
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/894729
>>
>> Title:
>>  Gear icon maybe too subtle
>>
>> Status in Launchpad itself:
>>  Triaged
>>
>> Bug description:
>>  I actually didn't realize you could customize visible information on
>>  the bug listing pages until I actually re-read Dan H-G's post about
>>  it. It took me a while, even then, to figure out that there was a gear
>>  icon I could click.
>>
>>  I could understand that this bug might be a matter of opinion.
>>
>> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/894729/+subscriptions

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

I definitely think it's worth a usability test if you have the time. And it's trivial to fix once we have a nicer icon and test results. The technical work is nothing standing in the way.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

I really hope we can look at this in the context of the overall style. User
testing would be good, but it would be a shame if that ended up being
applied only in one specific case, or inconsistently with other elements.
On Dec 14, 2011 5:35 AM, "Deryck Hodge" <email address hidden> wrote:

> I definitely think it's worth a usability test if you have the time.
> And it's trivial to fix once we have a nicer icon and test results. The
> technical work is nothing standing in the way.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> Launchpad itself.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/894729
>
> Title:
> Gear icon maybe too subtle
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/894729/+subscriptions
>
>

[Huw Wilkins (huwshimi)]

@Matthew, yes this is something I can do myself.

[Huw Wilkins (huwshimi)]

I have moved the icon to the left of the header and have made it a lot darker. Screenshot attached.

[Launchpad QA Bot (lpqabot)]

Fixed in stable r14542 <http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~launchpad-pqm/launchpad/stable/revision/14542>.