[Tango-artists] Search/Find and Zoom Metaphors

[Evandro Fernandes Giovanini]

Em Ter, 2006-01-03 às 13:03 -0400, Steven Garrity escreveu:
> There was some discussion in #tango today about icon metaphors for 
> Search (or "find", but I'll just say "search" for now) and Zoom.
> 
> So far, we've been using a magnifying glass as the general "search" 
> visual metaphor. We have not had a good "zoom" metaphor yet.
> 
> I would like to suggest that the magnifying glass is a better metaphor 
> for zooming, than it is for search.
> 
> For search, we could us binoculars.
> 
> A magnifying glass does zoom - you use it to make something bigger, more 
> detailed. Binoculars are used to scan a scene for something - more like 
> search.
> 
> Make any sense, or am I stretching these metaphors too far?
> 

I associate binoculars with zooming, not searching. ;)

> On downside is that the magnifying glass is often associated with search 
> (Mac OS X) and some people might have that association already.
> 

I could be wrong but I think I read somewhere that Windows Vista is
using an icon almost identical to the OS X one. If that's the case then
IMHO it's best to leave the Tango metaphor as it is. :)

Cheers,
Evandro