ODF icons i-team

From Apache OpenOffice Wiki
Revision as of 23:22, 17 November 2010 by Yorick (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

Rework of the unified ODF icons

The ODF icons will be rework in order to improve the usability. An multidisciplinary I-team will take care of the rework.

Since the release of OpenOffice.org 3.2 we received a lot of very qualified feedback for the new ODF icons. We think the icons are a step in the right direction, but we acknowledge that there is room for improvement, specially relating to the usability. So following the recommendation of the community council we would like to make the icons better. That’s why we are creating an i-team that will be responsible for the changes on the ODF icons. Anyone who is interested can take part in the process of improving the icons, we welcome the input of users and experts. So, please join us!

Anyhow, we also know that the best way to get an i-team to work in a productive way is to be clear and transparent about the framework of the process. There are a few requirements that must be taken into account when re-designing the icons. These are the common starting point of the project and represent the frame within the icons can be changed. But apart from those requirements, the process of designing the icons is open for new interesting ideas.

Requirements:

1. ODF IDENTITY = BLUE badge for better communication-usability (can senders & receivers name their preferred file type which avoids conversion problems?)

2. CORE FUNCTION = FORM plus gray, black and white for storage-usability (can users find documents fast?)

3. STATUS FUNCTIONS = COLOR badges for emerging collaboration-usability (can users see a document status before opening?)

Odf icons rationale.png

This approach has of course some advantages and disadvantages. The ODF blue color helps users identify the document format and avoid conversion problems. On the other side the core function are designed in gray, black and white, making it a little harder for users to find documents quickly. But this is exactly the point we would like to address in the i-team. #3 shows how color can be used for new and future ODF functionality.


The iTeam

Role
Name
Email

UX and Marketing

Graham Lauder

yorick_@openoffice.org




You can find information about the previous ODF icon i-team here.

Resources

Paste links to usuful Photoshop, Illustrator, Inkskape etc. resources here


Links

iStockPhoto (search for documents in 'illustrations')

Minimal Style Icons

Token icon set

Brightmix icon set

Minimalistic icons

Personal tools