Share: The Icon No One Agrees On • Hacker News Board

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#121

Post by gurkendoktor » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:08 AM UTC

oldspiceman wrote: post #80

Translating 'share' into chinese yields this nice character: 共 It's unique and memorable after you learn it. Not like the million other arrows we have in icons.

Sharing is called 分享 on the Taiwanese Facebook (and in my dictionary).

I think I've only seen 共 in compounds for things that are already shared, communal or co-existant, and notably as an abbreviation for communism. 中共 = 中國共產黨 = Chinese communist party. Not really a positive connotation. :)

(Disclaimer: Not a native speaker)

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#122

Post by mopedDreams » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:11 AM UTC

eitally wrote: post #114

I'm perfectly ok with the Android icon, which looks different from just about everything else and is easy to remember once learned. The Apple icon looks too generic, and there are already way too many icons that look document-ish. The Windows icon looks too much like Ubuntu to me, and it additionally isn't intuitive that a circular icon means sharing. The Dropbox & Google Apps icons are great, but are also large and…

>The Windows icon looks too much like Ubuntu to me

The definition of "Ubuntu" (from wikipedia):

"...is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean 'the belief in a universal bond of sharing'..."

Also, I love the circular sharing icon if you see it as an overhead view of 3 people holding hands.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#123

Post by unfamiliar » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:21 AM UTC

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 you are over thinking this a little. If you take "share" as a blanket term for "make this file accessible to others in some form" then it is clear why all of these actions should be grouped together, even if their details and implementation are quite different. That is why I think the ios icon is not so problematic, because "share" in this sense is a generalisation of uploading. You are not necessarily sending the data to a server in the traditional sense, but you are transmitting it to another party in some form.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#124

Post by egfx » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:30 AM UTC

What would be the best SHARE representation in Emoji???

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#125

Post by ddebernardy » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:37 AM UTC

It is quite telling that the article itself, towards the very bottom, prompts to share with facebook, twitter and google+ buttons -- but no share icon of any sort.

For good reasons, too: when you want to share something, you invariably want to do so in a specific manner, meaning email, FB, twitter, HN, etc., rather than plain "share".

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#126

Post by higherpurpose » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 9:10 AM UTC

iOS7 one definitely conveys uploading. The Windows 8 one is just stupid.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#127

Post by dotnick » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 9:13 AM UTC

> Overall, the idea of this design is not immediately intuitive and the association of sharing with this symbol is purely because users have learned what it means over time.

I honestly believe that this is the case for all the icons. As an Android user and developer, I wouldn't associate the box with the up arrow with a "share" action, much less the Windows 8 circle thing.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#128

Post by retroencabulato » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 9:39 AM UTC

eitally wrote: post #114

I'm perfectly ok with the Android icon, which looks different from just about everything else and is easy to remember once learned. The Apple icon looks too generic, and there are already way too many icons that look document-ish. The Windows icon looks too much like Ubuntu to me, and it additionally isn't intuitive that a circular icon means sharing. The Dropbox & Google Apps icons are great, but are also large and…

Agreed. I always mess up the android text actions.

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#129

Post by piokoch » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 9:40 AM UTC

That's very interesting indeed.

In the old days Microsoft was creating an icon and everybody used that, otherwise people would not understand what a given button is doing. Web and mobile devices with multiple os changed all that.

Another thing is how much iconized guis are. In theory it would be enough to create an icon with "Share" written on it. Nobody even tries that now, not even icon + text.

This is also a beautiful example of how much text/speech is sometimes more powerfull then picture. It seems that not always "picture is worth a thousand words".

Re: Share: The Icon No One Agrees On

#130

Post by TuringTest » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 10:17 AM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #44

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…

> But are they? Yep, they are. It's impossible to share digital data without making a copy that is not under your control. There are some difference in write permissions, but people also do understand those.

The problem is that share as a verb is a bad metaphor for resources that can be replicated without limit; publish (or send, broadcast) is the right metaphor for that process when seen as an instant, one-off action.

Now shareD as a state is how the metaphor makes sense, for content stored at a common resource where one can take it back later, like your profile on a social network. So a better use that would hold the right nuances would be:

- Publish for making copies of the content and sending them to channels where one doesn't have control.

- Shared / Private for the status of content on channels on which you keep control to change that status.

Unfortunately, the needs of social sites (that try to make as much shared information as possible, and avoid people to withdraw it) have promoted the current confusing usage and spoiled it for all.