[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 82272] New 'Chart' toolbar icon

bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org
Thu Aug 7 00:04:59 PDT 2014


https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82272

--- Comment #1 from Jay Philips <philipz85 at hotmail.com> ---
Here is a portion of the twitter discussion i had with a professional UX coder
regarding the chart icon yesterday. The full discussion can be found at <
https://twitter.com/phantominker/status/496832435389468672 >

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@jphilipz One really easy one: There really ought to be a "Create Chart" button
on the toolbar by default. I found it in the menus after a minute, but such an
incredibly common business tool ought to be readily accessible and require no
treasure hunts.

@jphilipz Love or hate Excel's ribbon, the "Create Chart" buttons are big and
bold on its "Insert" tab. It's not rocket science to find 'em.

@jphilipz Even back in the toolbar days, both it and Quattro Pro all had a
"Create Chart" toolbar button.

@phantominker there is a 'chart' button in calc in the toolbar, its a red pie
chart with a green slice

@jphilipz Either it didn't exist in my version (4.1.x, I think), or that icon
needs redrawing. I'll check for it when I get home tonight.

@jphilipz (We use Excel at work, and I use LibreOffice [and formerly
OpenOffice] at home, because open source++.)

@phantominker quite sure its there as i'm running it now. :D there is an option
to have larger toolbar icons in Tools > Options > View

@jphilipz That red thing in this screenshot?
http://www.softwarecrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/libreoffice_calc.png If
that's what you're talking about, it needs redrawing.

@phantominker yep the one next to the icon with a paintbrush

@jphilipz So try this simple Google search: https://t.co/HcAZSY8WlE Count how
many of the results look like that chart icon (hint: 0).

@jphilipz It looks far more like a red "stop doing something" button than a
chart icon, and the % in the corner doesn't help.

@phantominker yep i think a bar chart icon would be better. i remember someone
thinking that the percentage sign was some eyes

@jphilipz I'd suggest a simple bar-chart icon, a few bars, each a different
color. It's easy to recognize even at low resolutions, and difficult to mistake
for something else. Good Ux is about meeting expectations; not about trying to
change them.

@phantominker yes you are the second person to have difficulty with the icon,
so i'll suggest to them to change it to a bar.

@phantominker or atleast the same pie chart without the percentage sign. :D

@jphilipz I'd agree. Something like this may be boring, but it's unambiguous:
http://www.vista-style-icons.com/libs/biz-v/3d_graph-icon.gif

@phantominker i think a simple 2d version would be great as it would work well
in both small and large icon sizes.

@jphilipz You mean like other spreadsheet software has used for the last 20
years? Maybe a good idea. http://www.dixon.ws/quattro/screen.gif

@phantominker maybe 2d when its a small icon and 3d when its a large icon

@phantominker libreoffice has come out with their own icon set called Sifr and
in it, its a simple flat pie chart that is easy to understand

@jphilipz There's a reason why Excel, Lotus, Quattro, Numbers all used bar
charts for their chart icon. Study your competition.

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It makes me wonder, why on windows are the default icons small and on linux
they are large.

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