share-like-connect icons

[Sam S.]

My thoughts for improving the share-like connect icons (I hope its OK
to just share them like this, and not considered bike-shedding):

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A) ICON SHAPES

1. "share"

The one suggested by Bugsbane doesn't really convince me. From the top
of my head, it reminds me of the "CC-SA" license, but out of context
it probably wouldn't have told me anything, so I conjecture that
"universally recognized" is an overstatement. Also, it feels too
technical and "geeky" to me.

The "web-standard" share icon suggested by Aseigo would work, but I
don't think its a perfect fit either.
Interacting with locally stored pictures/documents on your tablet is
different from browsing the web. Here, "sharing" something with your
friends doesn't mean "twitter/blog a recommendation about a certain
web URL to your friends", like I would associate with that web icon,
it means "actually upload something from this device, off to another
device (e.g. friend's PC) or a web server (e.g. facebook)" (or did I
misunderstand the purpose of this icon in Plasma Active?).

Therefore I would suggest to experiment with an icon like this...
http://thenounproject.com/noun/upload/#icon-No643
...except with the silhouette of faces/people (like the shape of the
current icon) instead of the silhouette of a cloud.
The upwards arrow explains very clearly what's going on, and cutting
it away from the background shape (instead of overlaying it as a
separate shape) reduces clutter and should hopefully make it work at
small sizes.
(Note that such an icon would work especially well if its width is
allowed to be greater than its height, see "General Presentation"
below.)

2) "like"

A heart icon seems to be a good choice here.
"Thumbs up" would be possible too, but might not be as universally
recognized (in non-Western cultures), and feels less "warm & friendly"
than a heart.

3) "connect"

Here, I think both the current icon and the one suggested by Bugsbane
are far too technical and focus too much on the letter of the word
"connect", rather than its actual meaning in this context.

As far as I can see from screenshots/screencasts of Plasma Active,
"connect" in this context has nothing to to do with "connecting two
cables", it rather means connect as in "pinning a postcard to a
pinboard".
So I would suggest experimenting with a stylized rendering of a pin, like...
http://thenounproject.com/noun/pin/#icon-No1490
...except maybe add some perspective, and maybe even delineate a piece
of paper that is being "pinned down", or several pieces of paper which
are being "pinned together", or something similar.

B) ICON STYLE / COLORS

I don't agree with the other commenters who say that using a dark grey
style for the icons would mean introducing yet another new icon theme:
It already exists - just look at the Contour and Activities icon at
the left and right edge of the Plasma Active screen...
I believe that this is exactly the theme that Share-Like-Connect
should also be using, since *exactly* like Contour and Activities its
a first-class, top-level member of the Plasma Active UI providing an
integrated cross-application functionality, and its look should
reflect that (see "General Presentation" below).
The style chosen by Bugsbane is already almost there, adding some
slight top-down gradients should do the rest.

C) GENERAL PRESENTATION

Creating new, dedicated icons will already go a long way towards
improving the look & feel of the Share-Like-Connect UI, but I think
more could be done.

Users (especially those coming from Microsoft Windows) have been
conditioned to shy away from anything that looks like "a bunch of
systray icons which I didn't ask for". I believe that many users will
never even touch it if it looks like that.

The truth is, the Share-Like-Connect is *not* a dynamic list of "some
random icons", it's a unique, integral part of the UI. So while
usually, inventing new, single-purpose UI elements should be avoided,
I believe it would be justified here.

Also, I believe that the whole Share-Like-Connect idea will only
really work in practice if accessing those icons is so comfortable (as
in, not requiring much thought/concentration at all) that users
voluntarily start to use them all the time.

In accordance with the above thoughts, I would suggest to move away
from the conventional systray-style "lone icons on a panel" look, and
design it as special UI element that "feels" more like a
fused-together button group (but not as intrusive, especially avoiding
the nested beveling that would result from placing actual push-buttons
on top of the panel, maybe by somehow visually "merging" the outline
of the buttons into the panel background itself).

Independently of how they're styled, each of the "buttons" should be
quite a bit wider than the current icons are (maybe two times as
wide), with the actual icon (of possibly non-square dimensions itself)
in the middle, so accessing them quickly and often is made very easy.

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That's it for now, I hope I haven't offended/annoyed anyone.

Regards,

  Sam