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I like to imagine that the people that get annoyed with poor iconography are the same people that use Vim and other esoteric software. Instead of commenting on

I like to imagine that the people that get annoyed with poor iconography are the same people that use Vim and other esoteric software. Instead of commenting on google's design, we could be commenting on software that isn't proprietary, closed source and anti-consumer, with access provided for free solely to enable data mining and maximise ad revenue.

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
> I like to imagine that the people that get annoyed with poor iconography are the same people that use Vim and other esoteric software. Graphic designers and information architects aren't using vim. In fact, vim suffers from the same lack of transparency/discoverability as these icons do.
cpburns2009 8y ago
I hate poor iconography. A while ago it took me a good 15 minutes to figure out how to mark an email as "unread" in the Gmail Android client. Apparently an envelope icon means "mark as unread". The newish (within the past couple years) navigation icons on Android are great: a left pointing triangle, a circle, and a square. At least the triangle points the same direction as old back button. Disclaimer: I do use Vim when SSHed into a server because that's the CLI editor I happened to learn and it supports regex search.
- roywiggins 8y ago
  An envelope icon can also mean "mark as read" in GMail. It's like a treasure hunt, but for your email. Fun[1]! [1]not fun
- MereInterest 8y ago
  Also, the "Mark as unread" button is only present if you are in your inbox with the email selected. There is nothing analogous to the desktop's "Mark as unread" which is at the top of an open email, and returns you to the inbox when used. Also, there is no indication that the emails are selectable at all. The icon to the left of each email is a portrait of the sender, which in no way corresponds to the action of selecting an email.
dmitriid 8y ago
Gmail, arguably, has the largest share of email users. When companies as large as Google do redesign, other people tend to blindly copy their design decisions. And the design choices such companies make are often bad/wrong/suboptimal etc. It actually makes perfect sense to criticise Google's design because 1) they are a multibillion dollar company who apparently can't even invest in a product designer, and 2) they are highly visible and other projects (especially open source ones) will gladly adopt the same approaches. Just look at the incomprehensible mess that is Material design.

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago

> I like to imagine that the people that get annoyed with poor iconography are the same people that use Vim and other esoteric software. Graphic designers and information architects aren't using vim. In fact, vim suffers from the same lack of transparency/discoverability as these icons do.

cpburns2009 8y ago

I hate poor iconography. A while ago it took me a good 15 minutes to figure out how to mark an email as "unread" in the Gmail Android client. Apparently an envelope icon means "mark as unread". The newish (within the past couple years) navigation icons on Android are great: a left pointing triangle, a circle, and a square. At least the triangle points the same direction as old back button. Disclaimer: I do use Vim when SSHed into a server because that's the CLI editor I happened to learn and it supports regex search.

roywiggins 8y ago
An envelope icon can also mean "mark as read" in GMail. It's like a treasure hunt, but for your email. Fun[1]! [1]not fun
MereInterest 8y ago
Also, the "Mark as unread" button is only present if you are in your inbox with the email selected. There is nothing analogous to the desktop's "Mark as unread" which is at the top of an open email, and returns you to the inbox when used. Also, there is no indication that the emails are selectable at all. The icon to the left of each email is a portrait of the sender, which in no way corresponds to the action of selecting an email.

dmitriid 8y ago

Gmail, arguably, has the largest share of email users. When companies as large as Google do redesign, other people tend to blindly copy their design decisions. And the design choices such companies make are often bad/wrong/suboptimal etc. It actually makes perfect sense to criticise Google's design because 1) they are a multibillion dollar company who apparently can't even invest in a product designer, and 2) they are highly visible and other projects (especially open source ones) will gladly adopt the same approaches. Just look at the incomprehensible mess that is Material design.