Re: User interface suggestions

[Calum Benson <calum benson ireland sun com>]

Jörg Rathlev wrote:

> Just take a look at the screenshot (see link below) and compare the icons in
> the start menu with those of GIMP. Which are easier to recognize, easier to
> distinguish and (probably) easier to memorize?

There are a couple of fundamental problems with GNOME's icons IMHO...
first, even on the core desktop, there's not as much visual consistency
between them as there ought to be, even though they're drawn in a
vaguely similar style.  Some use no perspective (Glade), some use
1-point perspective (Evolution), some use 2-point (Netscape 'cube'),
some use 3-point (control center), some are cartoony (Gimp), some are
photorealistic (GNOME terminal)...  about the only truly common element
is the drop-shadow, and some of them don't even have that, e.g. the
Netscape cube again.

Second, the fact that only one (large) size of icon is used to generate
all the other sizes on the fly turns some of the smaller ones into an
unrecognisable mess-- I'm running a 1280x1024, 24-bit display here, and
half the 24x24 icons on the GNOME menu are just a blob of colour because
of all their fancy shading.  I nearly always have to read the GNOME menu
text rather than using the icons for identification, which is made even
harder because all those icons in the margin make it harder for the eye
to scan for the start of each word.

The Windows Start menu may not be the world's greatest invention, but I
usually find things on that a darn sight quicker than I ever do on the
GNOME menu, and my Windows Start menu has a lot more stuff on it--
that's partly down to organisation, but also because I can recognise the
icons much more easily.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems