Comment 0 for bug 382626

Binary package hint: human-icon-theme

(Filed as per the UDS-Karmic "Death by a 100 paper cuts" session, where the issue was cited as and agreed to be an example of a design "paper cut".)

The icon used in the button that toggles the Nautilus address bar (in browser mode) between icon and text modes does not illustrate the function of the button. Instead, it suggests that the function may be something related to writing things on paper, the digital analogues of which would be text editing or word processing, for which we have preinstalled software that is to be launched in a different way (i.e. going to the "Applications" menu), and (it was cited that) user testing has shown people tend to click this button when prompted to write something. It's also worth noting that The "Designing Effective Icons" article of the GNOME HIG [1] refers to an effectively identical variation of this icon as "A functionally suggestive icon for a word processor".

A toggle button with pressed / not pressed states is not ideal for conveying the information required of the button in this case. We don't want to convey whether the bar is "in text mode or not"; we want to convey precisely which of the two available modes it is in. The GNOME HIG also recommends against using a single toggle button in isolation [2].

The solution would be to either modify Nautilus, preferably upstream, to have a regular stateless button that displays a "Switch to text mode" icon when in button mode, and vice versa, and design those respective icons, and/or (maybe as a temporary measure until that happens) design a replacement icon that does not suggest word processing functionality and better illustrates the current one.

[1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/icons-design.html.en
[2] http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/controls-toggle-buttons.html.en