Secret Cow Milking Enclosure ([info]stephdairy) wrote in [info]suggestions,
@ 2006-01-12 13:00:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:syndication, user interface, § rejected

Go back to using satellite dish for feeds

Title
Go back to using satellite dish for feeds

Short, concise description of the idea
Use the old satellite dish icon next to the username of a feed rather than the Firefox/MS feed icon

Full description of the idea
Although the Firefox/MS feed icon is good as an icon for linking to an RSS/Atom feed, it does not work well or look good when used next to the feed username (cf [info]stephdiary). The old "satellite dish" icon worked much better in this context, and should be brought back.

An ordered list of benefits
  • The satellite dish icon is in neutral colours and doesn't jar as much as the new orange icon when displayed in running text.
  • Users may expect the orange icon to link to a feed rather than to the user information page for the LJ syndicated version of that feed; the satellite dish icon has no similar expectation.

An ordered list of problems/issues involved
  • No problems involved.

An organized list, or a few short paragraphs detailing suggestions for implementation
  • No implementation suggestions.

(Post a new comment)


[info]asciident
2006-01-12 07:36 pm UTC (link)
That icon is meant to represent "there is an xml feed coming when you click on this link". To have it link to LJ userinfo for a syndicated account is misleading and a confusion for the icon overall which isn't only used here. So I definitely agree it needs to be something else (the satellite icon or otherwise).

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]nikolasco
2006-01-13 01:35 am UTC (link)
It's standardized across Microsoft and Mozilla, at least (95% of browser market share). Matt Brett's FeedIcons.com is the most prominent promotion site.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]adudeabides
2006-01-13 01:43 am UTC (link)
The single-best reason for changing this.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mackenzie
2006-01-12 07:39 pm UTC (link)
Yes!

The new one is simply too ugly.

(Reply to this)


[info]syrinx42
2006-01-12 07:48 pm UTC (link)
agreed! not a fan of the orange icon.

(Reply to this)


[info]ruakh
2006-01-12 07:51 pm UTC (link)
Oh. It took me a while to figure out what you were talking about, as the satellite-dish image was still in my browser's cache. :-P

Yes, the satellite dish is definitely better, firstly because it was created by an LJ user, and secondly because it's just better. :-)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]voldemort234
2006-01-13 02:19 am UTC (link)
Thanks for making me clear my cache to see what we're talking about. Now I am sad. :*(

Dear Satellite: Come back! I LOVE YOU SO!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]bitter_crimson
2006-01-12 07:56 pm UTC (link)
Agreed.

The new icon does make one think it will link to the feed rather than to the LJ syndicated account userinfo.

(Reply to this)


[info]rho
2006-01-12 07:58 pm UTC (link)
Absolutely. The new one both looks ugly, and is misleading.

(Reply to this)


[info]vampwillow
2006-01-12 07:59 pm UTC (link)
whilst I do like the 'orange' RSS logo (seeing as it now has a winder status) it is very disruptive / obtrusive on one's friends page, and whilst I would concur with using it on the info page about the feed (where, after all, one needs to know that you're reading an RSS feed) it is overkill when used inline within text ...

revert please!

(Reply to this)


[info]crschmidt
2006-01-12 08:07 pm UTC (link)
Yes.

(Reply to this)


[info]dandelion
2006-01-12 08:12 pm UTC (link)
Yes. It bugs me that the icon's in a completely different style to the community and member icons. Why was it changed?

(Reply to this)


[info]xtomxfallsx
2006-01-12 08:13 pm UTC (link)
Yes.

Whose bright idea was it to change that anyway? There are so many other LJ things that need work, why are they wasting their time with stuff that isn't broken?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]7rin
2006-01-14 11:12 pm UTC (link)
Dunno, but they've been playing (and ruining IMO) an awful lot this past week or so. :(

Yup to going back to how it was.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]ekevoo
2006-01-12 08:13 pm UTC (link)
Agreed. Not what the orange icon was made for.

(Reply to this)


[info]pinterface
2006-01-12 08:15 pm UTC (link)

I wholeheartedly approve of the abolition of that repulsive orange monstrosity.

(Reply to this)


[info]desh
2006-01-12 08:25 pm UTC (link)
Agreed! A good place for the orange icon would be on the userinfo page or the LastN page of a syn account, linking directly to the raw XML. Having this icon link to a userinfo page is misleading.

(Not to mention, I agree that the icon is kind of ugly and jarring.)

(Reply to this)

Big green thumb
[info]imc
2006-01-12 09:25 pm UTC (link)
Yes.

(Reply to this)


[info]veroz
2006-01-12 09:30 pm UTC (link)
I think the new standard icon is required. I know you all have grown accustomed to the satellite dish but it doesn't illustrate what the feed really is. If you want to pull in an rss feed from another website to your LiveJournal, they'll probably use an icon similar to this to represent their feed link.

Would you guys feel more comfortable if we changed the colors and got rid of the background so the icon is just of the circle and waves?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]mendel
2006-01-12 09:36 pm UTC (link)
It's not only not required, it's in the wrong place. The wave icon is the replacement for the [XML] icon, but we're using it to point to a human-readable HTML page instead of to an RSS feed.

It was a well-intentioned change (new cross-browser standard feed icon, yay!), but the wrong thing was changed. The wave icon should replace the [XML icon on the syndicated feed's userinfo page, not the satellite dish, whose meaning is (correctly) local to LiveJournal.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]veroz
2006-01-12 09:45 pm UTC (link)
Good point, nevertheless, I don't think reverting back to the satellite dish is an option. It's just out-dated and confusing to new users. We want to emphasize the fact that LJ can be RSS reader as well and I don't think a satellite dish communicates that very well. Perhaps we can replace the XML icon with the new feed icon and come up with a new solution that works well inline with text and is understandable that it links to the feed info.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]desh
2006-01-12 09:59 pm UTC (link)
Perhaps we can ... come up with a new solution that works well inline with text and is understandable that it links to the feed info.

That's a lot to say with one icon. But as long as the eventual solution isn't too "busy" or big or visually jarring, as long as it fits in nicely with the current user/comm/etc. icons, and as long as it doesn't lead people to think that they're actually getting a link to some XML, I'm sure I'd be fine with it, and I bet I speak for at least several others in this community. (I prefer the satellite dish myself, but change can be good.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]imc
2006-01-18 12:02 pm UTC (link)
[info]afree87 made one here:

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]desh
2006-01-18 08:28 pm UTC (link)
In my opinion, that still would suffer from the problem that that icon is only supposed to link to XML and never HTML. Yes, the color difference helps (especially for us non-colorblind people), but I don't think it's enough.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]rho
2006-01-13 12:54 am UTC (link)
If you want to change the icon to be more descriptive and easier for new users to understand, then that's great, and I'd fully support that. In the meantime, while we're waiting for someone to come up with this new icon, would it not be possible to switch back to the old one up to that point? The old satellite dish was far from perfect, but it's much better than the current icon, for all the reasons everyone has pointed out.

(If something new is being worked on in the here and now, disregard this. I just know that often things can take a long while to get done around here.)

(And if you're trying to promote LJ's syndication/aggregation functionality, wouldn't a link to /syn/ from somewhere like /friends/edit.bml also be a good idea as well as changing the icon?)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]damnitnicole
2006-01-12 09:41 pm UTC (link)
I could deal with that idea.
What's bugging me about it besides the jarring, color, is that the icon now looks totally out of place sizewise next to the icons for other account types.

I think that on LJ, it should stick with a standard size and color set for the userinfo images. If you can mix that with the off-LJ standard RSS logo, cool. If not, I'd prefer to see the satelitte dish. People who use LJ know what it means, and people who don't use LJ are probably not too worried about what our syndication icons look like, since they're not using us to aggregate for them anyway.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]kunzite1
2006-01-12 10:14 pm UTC (link)
does no one on the team besides [info]daveman692 listen to me?
i know you do when i IM you, and you may have just missed my comments on the other post.

[info]mart listens to me when i comment to him.

so... what's the deal? there's more discussion in the changelog post that altered the image, however, i've been told not to link to changelog in [info]suggestions.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]veroz
2006-01-12 10:22 pm UTC (link)
I've read the changelog comments. Just throwing up the idea in suggestions. Ultimately though, like [info]daveman692 said, all the icons will be revamped with much consideration to design. These are more like quick patches.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]kunzite1
2006-01-12 10:24 pm UTC (link)
i sit with the point that several other users do that the rss-like icon is incorrect to signify the userinfo page of a syndicated account.

if the XML icon wishes to be changed to the rss-like icon, that's cool. but not the info icon.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]ccnuggie
2006-01-15 03:33 pm UTC (link)
People like you ruin this great place.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
A solitary vote against?
[info]matgb
2006-01-12 09:41 pm UTC (link)
I like the new use. Admittedly, I liked the old one as well, but I like the thing.

Admittedly, the colour may look bad on some themes, but it looks great on mine, so I'm happy.

(Reply to this)


[info]jproulx
2006-01-12 10:06 pm UTC (link)
 

(Reply to this)


[info]jennifer
2006-01-12 10:19 pm UTC (link)
I agree - the new icon is misleading, and this is another case of "If it wasn't broken, why fix it?"

(Reply to this)


[info]lithiana
2006-01-13 03:24 am UTC (link)
the satellite dish wasn't particularly wonderful, but this is terrible.

(Reply to this)


[info]queerbychoice
2006-01-13 03:28 am UTC (link)
Yes. I agree with everyone else who said the new icon is ugly and doesn't match the others and isn't being used in a way that makes sense.

(Reply to this)


[info]justhuman
2006-01-13 03:33 am UTC (link)
The satellite dish icon is in neutral colours and doesn't jar as much as the new orange icon when displayed in running text.

God yes. I was considering dropping feeds this morning so I wouldn't have to look at the really loud orange icon on the screen.

(Reply to this)


[info]southerndave
2006-01-13 08:09 am UTC (link)
I liked the satellite dish and if it came to a vote I would vote for its reinstatement. Its style was in keeping with the "user" and "community" icons. Basically I find the meaning of the satellite dish obvious but not so with the orange curves.

(Reply to this)

I know this is a "me too", but:
[info]pseudomonas
2006-01-13 09:24 am UTC (link)
Given a choice, I'd go for the old dish as well.

(Reply to this)


[info]uniquewonders
2006-01-13 09:10 pm UTC (link)
Aye.

(Reply to this)


[info]faithhopetricks
2006-01-15 01:14 am UTC (link)
Yes. This new link is ugly, new icon is ugly, stands out, is confusing and the way it's described doesn't make sense. Bring back the satellite and only change the icon when the proposed one isn't ugly and makes sense.

(Reply to this)


[info]sofiaviolet
2006-01-20 10:45 pm UTC (link)
I liked the satellite dish; the orange thing is kind of ugly.

(Reply to this)


[info]cgvictor
2006-03-09 11:02 am UTC (link)
Agreed.
+1 for the old dish.

(Reply to this)


[info]asciident
2006-04-18 06:56 pm UTC (link)
This suggestion has been migrated for implementation consideration.

[What does this mean?]

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]asciident
2006-04-26 01:10 am UTC (link)
This suggestion has at this time been rejected by site employees. It will be reconsidered at a later date.

[What does this mean?]

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…