wish: thinking of icon credit vs debit card

[Jeff Fortin Tam]

Debit transactions show a "Visa" card icon, while credit operations show a plain magnetic card icon... it should be the other way around.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

payment is assigned by you or maybe it is related to an import ?
I don't follow you on that (you are not clear, sorry)

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

In north america (and lots of places I suppose), VISA is typically only a credit card, while a debit card is something given usually only by a bank. I think I heard this is not necessarily the case in France.

The attached screenshot shows the "VISA" icon being associated to debit card transactions instead of credit card transactions

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

Same problem in the operations list view

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

that's the opposite, see the definition of both here:
http://ask.barclays.co.uk/help/day2day_banking/creditdebit

En France aussi les gens appellent une visa une carte de crédit mais c'est faux, c'est une carte de debit plus ou moins immédiat
http://www.lelynx.fr/banques/infos-pratiques/difference-entre-carte-credit-debit-39026/

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

Yes, that's what I'm saying... my definition matches the definitions found in both of your links:

- credit card = a loan, that you pay when the statement arrives at the end of the month, or get screwed by interest
- debit card = linked to a real balance in your bank account (or a "prepaid" card with real money in it)

...so we're in full agreement here, as far as I can tell. Unless I'm failing to see something big, my point stands: the two icons are inversed: the UI currently shows the "Visa" logo for *debit* cards instead of showing it for credit cards... which is potentially "wrong" for most people.

~~~~~~
This unfortunately brings me to mention a potentially bigger issue for you to consider: maybe using a brand name as an icon is not a reliable metaphor for the icon, because it can vary across jurisdictions: Visa is a brand strongly associated with credit cards, at least in north america (hence my initial description asking "Is it different in France?"). Indeed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc. lists them as offering both credit and debit cards across the world. So... perhaps those two icons need a distinction not based on a brand name, but based on... well I'm not sure what, since both have electronic chips and magnetic stripes, so there's no physical difference. Maybe the debit card icon could have a "bank" icon on it?

The reason I find it unfortunate to bother you with this is because I know you've spent a lot of effort on those icons and they actually look really beautiful from a design point of view! :(

[Kinnin Vo-Shay (vo-shay)]

@Jean-François Have you seen this wish: https://bugs.launchpad.net/homebank/+bug/1424222 ? I think that being able to choose which icons to use addresses the issue you've identified without Maxime having to reconcile potentially different interpretations from around the world.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

In fact if an icon does not suit, you can change it already

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

From the user's perspective, I do not want to "choose" icons. The app should have that figured out for me in a universal way. "Adding an option for this", instead of finding a more accurate visual metaphor, is hiding the problem under the rug :)

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

I should definitely remove the visa brand for that icon.
Please take a look at what follow and answer in the folowing days, I would like to fix this.

The main problem is that there is not much icon that enable to distinguish both in that case (goole image did not help, not iconarchive, nor iconfinder, nor... anything else).
The sole solution would be to have different colors maybe, but then we face the same problem, icons are not that much identifying anything.

So I can see two option:

1) design new icons based on the actual creditcard (the white icon) and
- color it to green for credit card
- color it to red for debit card

2) design new icons with (this second has the advantage to be transposable in a flat or monocolor theme):
- a white card and a small + sign for credit
- a white card and a small - sign for debit

3) open to any other suggestion of course !!

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

here some sample

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

Any comment on my proposal
note that on the right it is the old pre v5 icons.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

I finally think again about it and draw some new icons, close to the pre v5.0

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

Hi Maxime, sorry for the delay... I was at a conference during that time and those mails got completely lost in the pile!

The proposed new icons in card-final.png look OK to me - they're an improvement over the current situation. If I look closely, one still has the visa logo and the other has the mastercard logo, but they're not big enough to confuse my eyes. What mostly distinguishes them now is their color (which won't work for people with protanopia or deuteranopia… but at that point you end up relying on the text I suppose, and for now at least people with "normal vision" have something less confusing visually :)

I see what you tried to achieve with the + and - icons on the cards; might not be a bad idea either, maybe if the + and - were centered as big circled things, something like [ (+) ] and [ (-) ] but even then I'm not sure it would be totally clear to most people anyway.

Frankly, I'm not sure there is a perfect solution in this situation; there are so many methods of transaction and they all look similar at that 16x16 size (including checks and cash :) so I don't have a "silver bullet" answer, unfortunately.

Also: thanks again for your efforts on improving this!