[Tango-artists] Performance icons

[Jakub Steiner]

On Sun, 2006-11-26 at 13:47 +0000, Richard Hughes wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> I'm working on an experimental applet to integrate with
> gnome-power-manager to allow better feedback and control of CPU
> frequency scaling. I'm planning an applet with the following drop-down
> menu:
> 
> Maximum performance
> Maximum power saving
> Automatic power saving
> 
> Now, I really want icons to convey these concepts, but I'm stuck for
> ideas.

Hi Richard,
as someone who pretty much lives from creating icons I have to say --
don't be afraid NOT to use an icon. An icon is meant to communicate
functionality faster than a block of text. If there is no obvious
metaphor for this, stretching it and making an artificial icon nobody
will understand will not make the interface better. We are currently
overusing icons in the interface, especially menus :/. 

> I'll also be including a panel icon of the current CPU speed, which I'm
> thinking to use the existing cpufreq-applet icons, and example of which
> is attached. I'm not sure if better concepts for CPU frequency scaling
> exist (rather than a microchip) - again, ideas welcomed.

I believe somebody (Lokheed?) had the icons in tango style. If this is
to be communicated at all, the status icon looks alright to me. I'll be
happy to tweak these quickly if nobody goes for the low hanging fruit.

-- 
Jakub Steiner <jimmac at novell.com>
Novell, Inc.