[Tango-artists] oxygen

[Matthew Thomas]

On 16 Nov, 2005, at 9:32 AM, Eric Larson wrote:
> ...
> On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 11:05 +0100, jimmac at novell.com wrote:
> ...
>> A new website for the new KDE icon theme is up at
>> http://oxygen-icons.org. The good news is that it's in fact closer to
>> the tango style than the crystal icons (note the inner stroke, yay!),
>> and that they are doing at least toolbar-sized versions in additionto
>> the biggies.
>>
>> The bad news is they went for the document-sheet for all mimetypes
>> metaphor.
>
> Have we done usability testing on this aspect? I have been playing 
> with KDE lately (I haven't looked at it in a very long time) and the
> document-sheet based icons really do not provide a clear visual cue as
> to what the icon expresses.
> ...

On the other hand, it does make a clear distinction between documents 
and other kinds of files, which is useful if you have a mixture of 
types on your desktop (for example). Currently Tango's audio-x-generic 
and video-x-generic document icons look very much like application 
icons (those of iTunes and iMovie respectively).

Such a standard is especially useful for games, where documents have no 
other real-world metaphor to use. What should be the icon for a saved 
game in game X? In Windows and Mac OS, the answer is easy and 
predictable: the icon for game X, in the middle of a sheet of paper.

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/