Oh well...

[Matthias Welwarsky]

On Sunday 17 November 2002 14:26, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> On Sunday 17 November 2002 11:00, Ferdinand Gassauer wrote:
> > BTW the shell is good for computer geeks - no (windows) user is familar
> > with "shell" for konsole. And the symbol only works for english language.
> > it does not make a good association in german (except a petrol company).
>
> Yes, I thought the seashell in the konsole icon was a well known bug (it
> would make a great example in a textbook on international icon design) and
> it surprises me that it hasn't been taken care of in the new icons.
>
> See also e.g.
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_report/exploring_desktop.html
> for a discussion of the gnome-terminal icon.

I've just read it, it's an interesting document, but it misses one important 
point: people are habit-driven, and with a history of 3 major releases, KDE 
has created quite a lot of habits in users minds. 

I think it's nearly impossible to create an icon that properly describes the 
concept of a "terminal emulation" for somebody who has no idea of that 
concept, but people who are used to KDE know what "a black monitor with a 
cursor in the upper left corner" means. 

So, the main rule for me seems to be: If I cannot find a proper "descriptive" 
icon, at least make it recognizable, that is, make it something that users 
can "learn" easily. That also implies, however, that I cannot make drastical 
changes any more. I can only smoothly migrate, probably making several 
intermediate steps.

If for KDE3.2, we wanted the kcontrol icon to be a "K" with a wrench in front 
of it, we'd probably gradually make the wrench the main recognized symbol of 
the icon, by just making it bigger with each 3.1.x release, and then just 
switch it's background to a "K" for 3.2..

regards,
	matze

-- 
Matthias Welwarsky
Fachschaft Informatik FH Darmstadt
Email: matze at stud.fbi.fh-darmstadt.de

"all software sucks equally, but some software is more equal"