Research results on Launchpad icons
Following up on our survey on icons in Launchpad, Charline Poirier provides us with the outcome:
Edit 
: High level of understanding, but a strong association with "attention", "warning", and "danger". Might be worth modifying colour or shape to distance the icon from that interpretation.
Merge 
: Reasonable understanding of "merge". However, participants were not entirely sure if the icon referred to the state 'merged' or the branches themselves.
Remove 
: Icon strongly associated with "do not enter" and "delete". The interpretation "remove" comes only in third place. The icon is strongly evocative and might be better used to designate a more consequential or prohibitive action.
Remote bug 
: A reasonable percentage of respondents understood the "remote bug" icon. Many, however, did not. It appears that the key for interpreting this icon is the representation of the bug itself. Various potential states of a bug were suggested as interpretations. This icon could be made more explicit.
External link 
: Relatively well understood. It is worth noting that the icon has powerful suggestion of globality and reach (associated with translation, languages, internationalization, etc). It is a very evocative icon that could be more fully exploited perhaps in another context.
What next? We'll attempt to create new versions of the icons, run another session of user-testing, and if understanding improves, Launchpad gets new icons \0/
October 13th, 2009 - 23:15
it was very fun to participate! thanks for the hard work!
October 14th, 2009 - 13:17
Also the perfect chance to work on LP #396081 and #401524 =D
November 25th, 2009 - 22:37
Any chance of a really innovative approach and provide cultural centric icons based on locale detection?
November 26th, 2009 - 17:59
Hi Troy,
He are currently discussing different ways of appealing to different cultures. It will be a long research and maybe an even longer time to get the technology to work for us, but I will certainly update the blog with any new developments.
November 27th, 2009 - 01:23
I personally think that is a very clever approach. It would also mark a landmark departure from the mainstreams.
Perhaps you could also collect some research on it? I would find it most interesting and intriguing if we could apply a locales based approach to the Free Desktop icon spec / implementation.
Let’s hope it happens soon…