Actually, the decision to not add icons for everything was a conscious one and I prefer it that way. However, the menu does look a bit ... puny? I added a user to my system and this person has a really, really long name; 26 characters. Afterwards, I noticed that the menu actually looked a lot better then. Perhaps it should simply get a wider minimum width?


Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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I agree, puny is the right word.. Also 'incomplete' comes to mind.

I read the discussion where it was decided not to use icons (can't remember the link now), however, looking at the mock-up in this thread, I do feel it looks more complete with the icons.


I can't see any other reason not to include them really.. so, I'm on the other camp on this one I'm afraid.

Alex

On 15/11/2008, Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@gmail.com> wrote:
Actually, the decision to not add icons for everything was a conscious one and I prefer it that way. However, the menu does look a bit ... puny? I added a user to my system and this person has a really, really long name; 26 characters. Afterwards, I noticed that the menu actually looked a lot better then. Perhaps it should simply get a wider minimum width?



Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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Hi Manu

On Nov 15, 2008, at 9:10 AM, Manu Cornet wrote:

...
The new Shutdown/Suspend/etc. actions in the top-right
fast-user-switching applet look great! However, I was wondering if
adding icons next to the menu items (as we usually do in GNOME) would
be a good idea? Or do you think it would add too much clutter?


One of the things that makes Gnome in general look messy and unpolished
is that almost every menu item has an icon -- and where an item
doesn't, it's not for any reason relevant to users, it's because nobody
has drawn one. (Sometimes they haven't had time to, but other times
there just is no possible understandable icon.) And as far as I know,
there is no empirical evidence that using icons in a typical pull-down
menu makes them faster to use.


Upstream we're currently considering how to reduce the number of icons
in menus. <http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=557469>


Meanwhile, as Baptiste pointed out, we do use icons for the various IM
statuses (because for those, we're fairly confident icons *do* help you
recognize the item you want more quickly). It's a bit awkward that
they're on the right rather than the left, but the rationale is to line
them up exactly with the equivalent icon in the panel itself.


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Olá Jo e a todos.

On Saturday 15 November 2008 16:44:47 Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
> Actually, the decision to not add icons for everything was a conscious one
> and I prefer it that way. However, the menu does look a bit ... puny?

humm as usual, give the user a choice: with or without icons! that way everyone is happy.
From what I saw I would prefer to have icons!

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Hi Matthew,

Thanks a lot for responding on this subject. Your input has always
sounded like good common sense to me :-)

I do believe that icons allow for faster identification so I'd rather
push for icons everywhere in menus & buttons instead of nowhere, but
designing some of the missing icons would indeed be virtually
impossible, and if there's no empirical evidence for this it might
just be my own idiosyncrasy. I'd love to hear about such
experiments/user studies if someone ever makes them.

Thanks again,
Manu

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@canonical.com> wrote:
> Hi Manu
>
> On Nov 15, 2008, at 9:10 AM, Manu Cornet wrote:
>>
>> ...
>> The new Shutdown/Suspend/etc. actions in the top-right
>> fast-user-switching applet look great! However, I was wondering if
>> adding icons next to the menu items (as we usually do in GNOME) would
>> be a good idea? Or do you think it would add too much clutter?
>
> One of the things that makes Gnome in general look messy and unpolished is
> that almost every menu item has an icon -- and where an item doesn't, it's
> not for any reason relevant to users, it's because nobody has drawn one.
> (Sometimes they haven't had time to, but other times there just is no
> possible understandable icon.) And as far as I know, there is no empirical
> evidence that using icons in a typical pull-down menu makes them faster to
> use.
>
> Upstream we're currently considering how to reduce the number of icons in
> menus. <http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=557469>
>
> Meanwhile, as Baptiste pointed out, we do use icons for the various IM
> statuses (because for those, we're fairly confident icons *do* help you
> recognize the item you want more quickly). It's a bit awkward that they're
> on the right rather than the left, but the rationale is to line them up
> exactly with the equivalent icon in the panel itself.
>
> Cheers
> --
> Matthew Paul Thomas
> http://mpt.net.nz/
>
> --
> ubuntu-desktop mailing list
> ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
>
>

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