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Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

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Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#101

Post by matt-attack »

robert_tweed wrote: post #66

Apple gets this spot on by having an icon represent the action actually being performed, i.e., sending some information somewhere. That could be to yourself (a bookmark) to another person, a group of people, or the public at large. It doesn't really matter. Many of the others are trying to represent the abstract concept of "sharing", which doesn't fit the use case at all. That's why those icons don't make any sense.…

> i.e., sending some information somewhere

Right, the icon really represents "send" or "upload" which to me is correct. The article seems to find fault in the fact that their "share" icon is the opposite of their "download" icon. But to me, if you consider the icon to mean "send" or "upload", then it makes sense that it is the opposite of "download".

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#102

Post by yincrash »

ghostly_s wrote: post #96
craigc wrote: post #89

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 en…

I don't think I've used it, but it would have never occurred to me that the paper plane icon did anything other than send an email. Of course I'm one of those weirdos that just copies a URL when I want to share something.

It's interesting that email send is your take away from that because Android's send icon[1] is also a paper airplane (or at least that's how I interpret the icon.)

[1] http://i.stack.imgur.com/Jg4vi.png

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#103

Post by breadbox »

There is no doubt in my mind that the "milkshake" one is the most sticky, and once it caught on people would definitely remember it, which is really what you need to make an icon become universal. Getting it to catch on in the first place ... that's probably not going to happen.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#104

Post by twelvechairs »

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…

Exactly. If you can't make an icon for it chances are the concept is too vague to be understood.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#105

Post by Tloewald »

The writer misses the fact that Apple has a more general and consistent concept of "sharing" (and has had consistently for nearly a decade -- before iOS and before the iOS sharing icon) than the others.

Share -- exemplified by iPhoto -- means share by any means (e.g. email, youtube, twitter, facebook, burning a DVD). Thus, Apple's icon makes perfect sense -- more sense than the Y -- based on this. You might be sharing with one specific person, or everyone. The point is that you're sending stuff OUT.

Most of the others treat sharing as something special that is "distribute by any method except the other things we have icons for".

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#106

Post by x0054 »

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…

Perhaps its more logical to refer to all of these types of action as "broadcast" rather than "share" actions. You are "broadcasting" a picture to facebook, or a link to the file via twitter, or the actual file via email. By referring to these actions as broadcast rather than share actions, you convey to the user that they are relinquishing power over that data, once the genie is out, you are not stuffing him back in. A good icon would be a radio antenna broadcasting things. Just a thought.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#107

Post by abruzzi »

tjohns wrote: post #40
cratermoon wrote: post #19

As a reluctant social media user, I think a can of SPAM would be perfect.

You can share content via email too. It's not just for new social media sites. (I'm actually not sure if this makes your SPAM analogy more or less appropriate.)

what I don't like about the explosion of share menus us that email has been subordinated to the share menu. I may be a constituency of one, but email is the only way I share. So instead of tapping or clicking "email", I have to tap "share" then email.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#108

Post by busterc »

Just yesterday, while developing a Cordova hybrid app intended to target iOS, Android & Windows Phone 8, this very notion became unsettlingly apparent for me. BTW, http://icons8.com is a great place to do icon recon.

Personally, I like the iOS 6 icon over the iOS 7 version. They're almost the same, except the new one places too much emphasis on "up." For example, when using the Meme Producer app and you want to save the picture to your photo library, the app uses the iOS 7 "action" icon but it feels awkward to then immediately go to the "download" icon to actually save. http://i.imgur.com/YtVd5WZ.jpg

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#110

Post by resu_nimda »

twelvechairs wrote: post #104
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…

Exactly. If you can't make an icon for it chances are the concept is too vague to be understood.

Well, I don't know about that. Some concepts are just abstract and don't have a distinct pictorial representation. For example, "save" is a pretty simple and easily understood concept but the best icon we have is at this point comically antiquated, and it offers zero clues to the uninitiated. But we haven't found anything that more fundamentally represents the concept.

Which I think is actually kind of ok, because again not everything has a simple obvious icon. Some things might be better served with just standardizing on an abstract and distinct shape. Newcomers may not know what a floppy disk is but they will learn the association anyway. And it just becomes one of those cool bits of lore that nerds like, double win!

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