[Tango-artists] Help for younger/international users?

[John C Barstow]

> Jakub Steiner wrote:
> we've had numerous discussions about this and we're more than inclined
> to drop the floppy. What we need is a usable replacement for the floppy
> metaphore. We had a number of suggestions and the best so far were a
> folder with an arrow pointing towards it (which wouldn't be easily
> distinguishable if we kept the current document-open folder icon) and
> the drive icon instead of the folder. This remains an open issue.

How about a document going into a folder? I'm thinking:

document (half-size, top-left, foreground), folder (half-size, 
bottom-right, background), curved arrow pointing from document to 
folder.

I don't know how that would play at small sizes, but it's the mental 
image I got when thinking about this. It also ties it more clearly to 
document manipulation.

Someone else suggested just replacing the floppy with a USB key, but 
that'll probably be dated quickly enough.

> It's another case of a dying technology, and apparently not very
> obviously drawn ;) It was supposed to be a film roll. Again, not feeling
> strongly about this ...

Oh, I remember those!  My parents used to have a film camera. :)

Maybe an actual camera, a framed photo, or collection of photos would be 
better.
 
> Personaly I don't see the resemblance a problem. MS mouse is one of the
> most common mice on the market. The computer monitor was also modeled
> after my own Sony monitor. I view SONY just about as evil as Microsoft. 

I think that the monitor is somewhat less distinctive (I certainly can't 
tell what brand a monitor is on the store shelves).

Maybe it would be sufficient to get rid of the blurred logo text? That 
certainly makes the mouse seem less than generic.

> That one I quite like. Changing themes is like changing skins, but I
> thought a few shirts may be more appropriate than, you know.. ;) 

I see your point, but does it make sense in cultures where people don't 
have ties? :)

> I'm not sure what you mean about the wallpaper. We had a gnome icon of a
> wallpaper but it failed to communicate the message as well as the
> paint/brush.

I guess I consider painting mutually exclusive with wallpapering. I'll 
take your word that it is more intuitive.


-- 
John C Barstow
GNOME Translation Project