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Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

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Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#81

Post by gcb0 »

The solution clearly is to spin a SAS (share icon as a service) startup: offer a single endpoint URL that returns one image of the requested size.

It will be a random share icon.

until we can measure how many times each user clicks on individual icons, and optimize in the future to use that previously used icon for that user. After some data collection period the user will be served the icon he identifies more readily.

Some heuristics can be added initially, like showing the android icon if the user agent is android for 90% instead of random.

Will be taking round A tomorrow by noon. thank you.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#82

Post by Pxtl »

morsch wrote: post #15

I think the Android icons are fine. The old one is a bit easier to understand due to the explicit arrow direction, but the new one is implicitly directed correctly for people who are trained to read left to right. It's abstract and consequently vague, but I don't think that's a big problem: I expect there to be a share functionality, and in that context the icon is easy enough to understand. The new Apple icon is les…

I think the Android icon (and the Windows icon) does convey the concept of "social network" and if this icon was exclusively used for FB/Twitter/Whatever, that would be appropriate.

But "share" is often used for emailing, or just marking a file as "public" in its existing storage.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#83

Post by Pxtl »

I'd think an arrow to the world would be the right icon, at least if you're doing a "publicize". I think grouping email in with other forms of broadcasting is part of the problem. I'd like to see two icons - one for "broadcast" which would be arrow-to-world (for FB/Twitter/Instagram/etc), and one for "send to a person" which would be an email-like letter icon, (for direct-messaging, emails, SMS, etc). While it may be similar to us developers, to a user the idea of "share" vs "send" is semantically different. "send" operations have recipients. "share" operations do not.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#84

Post by gilgoomesh »

morsch wrote: post #15

I think the Android icons are fine. The old one is a bit easier to understand due to the explicit arrow direction, but the new one is implicitly directed correctly for people who are trained to read left to right. It's abstract and consequently vague, but I don't think that's a big problem: I expect there to be a share functionality, and in that context the icon is easy enough to understand. The new Apple icon is les…

> the old one is better because it points to the side signifying communication towards a peer

Except that every standard form of sharing involves uploading to a server – very few are actually handled in a peer-to-peer fashion (bluetooth sharing between adjacent devices is the exception, not the rule).

The odd part about the Android icons is that they imply "make public" or "send to multiple locations". Neither may be the case. Email to a single recipient is the likely common case. You might just be uploading to your personal network drive (no other users, just yourself).

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#85

Post by Pxtl »

ggchappell wrote: post #20

The problem that comes before this one is whether share is a well-understood action. If I "share" via e-mail, then I transmit a document to others. After this, each recipient has a separate copy which, thereafter, is completely out of my control. If I "share" via social network, then I upload a document. This makes a single copy, accessible to previously chosen people. It is (depending on the social network) somewhat…

I think "send" vs. "share" is a good point. Email/SMS/DM/IM all have a recipient - they're messages that are sent.

A social network or blog does not. They're objects that are shared.

Using separate icons for "share" vs "send" would make sense to users.

I'm thinking some kind of "upload" metaphor vs "message" metaphor is right. Messaging metaphors are easy, but upload is a bit more tricky... Apple might have the right idea - but Apple's "out of box" icon is too vague, obviously because of Apple's need to keep icons elegantly simple. I'd go for a bit more complexity:

An arrow pointing at a globe. When you share something, you share with the internet. MS Office used globes to represent the Web - like a chain+globe for a hyperlink and whatnot. Use that - an arrow at the globe implies you're sending something to the Internet (and generally a public or semi-public place on the Web specifically).

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#86

Post by rssaddict »

The author seems to contradict himself in the conclusion: while earlier he states that the Android share icon is also used by ShareThis, and that variations on it comprise the majority of search results for the term "share icon", he then concludes by saying that the Apple/iOS icon is "suitable to use in a general site/app", while the Android icon is "suitable to use in an Android app".

I think the author's own greater familiarity with one icon (by virtue of being an OSX/iOS user) has led him to make an overreaching conclusion about the wider population.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#87

Post by nakovet »

probablyfiction wrote: post #2

I vote for a megaphone of some type

What I like about the megaphone is that looks similar to what we are doing, shouting to whoever wants to hear.

When you think about sharing a milkshake, you have two people sharing an experience; when you think about the open hand, looks like you are expecting someone to show up to hand over something to him or maybe begging.

My feeling when I click share or retweet is like I am shooting to stars and the odds that my bullet get to a black hole are huge.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#88

Post by radley »

tripngroove wrote: post #59
radley wrote: post #17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_icon The Android share icon has been around since (at least?) 2006 and was used a lot on websites, particularly Wordpress-based sites. It was initially open source but then sold Share This and trademarked. Most services use the icon shape without ST's green button background.

I think you've touched on one big source of this problem, which is that many of these icons have been trademarked and saddled with all manner of usage restrictions and licenses. As an entrepreneur or designer, am I going to waste who knows how much time interpreting the usage guidelines from Share This, or devote valuable space on my site to giving the Open Share people an attribution? No. I'm going to spend 5 minute…

It had an open source license... then it didn't.

As entrepreneur and designer, I go with the most common icon I find in Google images... which this happens to be.

Keep in mind, the trademark includes the green button background. That's significantly different.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#89

Post by craigc »

This article reminds me of conversations that we had at Vimeo when redesigning our video player.

Our previous share icon was two arrows facing diagonally in opposite directions. The main problem with that was that it was very close to our "embed" icon. We knew we wanted to change it, but we didn't know what icon to use.

We had a bunch of mockups that included some of the icons found in this article.

Ultimately, we ended up deciding on a paper airplane. It definitely is familiar to people in terms of sending email, but we also thought it was a playful and fun way to indicate sharing. Really it was the only icon that we all liked.

It might not be immediately clear at first, but hopefully after using it you get the hang of it.

You can check it out here: https://vimeo.com/76979871

And yes, I am the one in the opening shot of the video who throws the airplane :)

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