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Grey icons

Geo-Ewoud

By Geo-Ewoud
in General geocaching topics

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Beach_hut

+Beach_hut

Posted
Posted

Up until this point, Geocaching.com has been using mostly generic icons provided in third-party icon libraries. With this update we are now using icons that have been developed in-house by our design team, with imagery that was developed with geocaching in mind and that better matches the actual purpose behind the associated function. For example, rather than using an orange traffic cone for "Archive listing," we now use a red file cabinet. That old traffic cone was also used for about 3 other functions as well (including unarchive), and now each of those functions uses its own unique icon.

 

In addition, the coloring of the icons now follows a theme rather being all over the board. General actions are gray, while "positive" actions are green and "negative" actions are red. Blue is used for informative elements, such as ratings, notes from reviewers, directional arrows, et al.

 

Should a DNF be red and not grey then? Other than that, the new icons seem perfectly logical to me (there, I said it!) I never did like the orange traffic cones.

 

Come on everyone, all the caches out there are still as fun to find as they were yesterday, just because a few pixels are different.

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Beach_hut

+Beach_hut

Posted
Posted

The Needs Maintenance and Owner Maintenance icons look like they'd be confusing to someone with red-green colorblindness.

 

Fair point, although the previous icons for these two were just as confusing. I'm not even colour blindm and at times I couldn't recognise the icons by sight without the caption.

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cezanne

cezanne

Posted
Posted

I'm not even colour blindm and at times I couldn't recognise the icons by sight without the caption.

 

I could and I never needed captions for identifying e.g. PM only caches or the icon for several trackables in a cache.

With the new icon for PM only, it is so easy to confuse it with a GC which is annoying as it is important for me to recognize PM only caches already at the first sight.

 

 

Cezanne

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imanxman

+imanxman

Posted
Posted

I came to ask, and possibly complain, but now having seen the complaints, I won't rant, I'll try to be objective:

 

1) GS, I don't agree with the change, but I understand *why* you made *some* change.

2) Exactly what you changed it to, though, I think needs a second look, from an HMI standpoint. If for no other reason, from a readability standpoint (including colorblindness), especially where icons are too similar.

 

If wishes were fishes, mine would be colorful and generic, but probably only because they are comfortably familiar. If the new ones were better chosen, I'd probably grow to love them too, but I agree, they do look rather spartan and cheap. cie le vie.

 

Thank you for caring to maintain the system though, and for giving us an outlet to provide feedback.

 

J

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OMR

+OMR

Posted
Posted

Up until this point, Geocaching.com has been using mostly generic icons provided in third-party icon libraries. With this update we are now using icons that have been developed in-house by our design team, with imagery that was developed with geocaching in mind and that better matches the actual purpose behind the associated function. For example, rather than using an orange traffic cone for "Archive listing," we now use a red file cabinet. That old traffic cone was also used for about 3 other functions as well (including unarchive), and now each of those functions uses its own unique icon.

 

In addition, the coloring of the icons now follows a theme rather being all over the board. General actions are gray, while "positive" actions are green and "negative" actions are red. Blue is used for informative elements, such as ratings, notes from reviewers, directional arrows, et al.

 

I'm ok with the new icons, but I would really like to have the red/orange D/T stars back.

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The A-Team

+The A-Team

Posted
Posted (edited)

Blue is for informative elements (ratings, directional symbols, etc.).

Isn't the entire purpose for the "Write note" and "Announcement" log types to be informative?

I don't have a problem with cutting down on the number of different colours used, because there were a lot before, but reducing it to two and lumping every other one under grey is going too far. What's wrong with having 3 or 4 different colours? With the new icons, it's very difficult to scan through a set of logs and differentiate the different log types.

 

I'm wondering where a full list and description for each new icon is located. I can't tell anymore--after having trained my eyes to the old icons--what each means at a glance.

I was curious as well, so I headed over to the Help Center page on icons. I was completely unsurprised to find that the page hasn't been updated. For the last while, it seems that proper documentation has taken a back-seat to development.

 

Groundspeak, you really need to bounce your ideas off of some members of the general caching community. So far in this discussion, some experienced cachers have raised some valid, and in some cases obvious, concerns over this icon change. Consulting a few cachers beforehand would likely have yielded a much better set of icons that would be generally well-received and still fit your goals.

 

Edit to mention that I did not bold my entire post. I think the poster above me has a malformed bold tag in their signature that's causing everything below it to appear bolded.

Edited by The A-Team
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St.Matthew

+St.Matthew

Posted
Posted

Groundspeak, you really need to bounce your ideas off of some members of the general caching community. So far in this discussion, some experienced cachers have raised some valid, and in some cases obvious, concerns over this icon change. Consulting a few cachers beforehand would likely have yielded a much better set of icons that would be generally well-received and still fit your goals.

 

This is what needs to be on the plaque at Groundspeak Headquarters instead of junk about making better mistakes tomorrow.

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The A-Team

+The A-Team

Posted
Posted

Further to my previous post, I decided to make some suggestions rather than just complain.

The following are some of the ways I can think of that would have been better ways to go about making the icon change (and other past changes):

 

-Post the suggestion in the forums before implementing it. There are plenty of people that will be happy to point out flaws and improvements you may not have considered (as has been done in this case, albeit after the fact). Doing it in reverse by releasing the change and then waiting for the feedback will just irritate your membership.

 

-Come up with a few possible solutions, then show them to the general community to see what the majority prefers (through the website, newsletter, forum, etc.). I understand this isn't a democracy, but the wishes of the majority could be used as a guide to determining the best solution.

 

-Focus groups/beta-testers. I've heard in the past that you do have beta-testers, but there's clearly something wrong with that system based on what has been happening with the site. You may want to reconsider who you're using as beta-testers and how many of them there are, because they don't seem to be catching obvious flaws. I also can't recall ever hearing of any focus groups or anything similar. Do you ever bounce your ideas off of anyone outside of GSHQ?

 

You have access to a community of up to 5 million* users, but don't seem to be leveraging that resource effectively. Suggestions from the community aren't being implemented, and changes that haven't been requested are being implemented without any involvement of the community whatsoever. Something needs to change.

 

*We all know there aren't really 5 million active accounts. I doubt there are even a million, but there are a lot regardless.

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Roman!

+Roman!

Posted
Posted (edited)

What's blue for?

76.png

 

Blue is for informative elements (ratings, directional symbols, etc.).

 

I got that for submitting a cache for review, shouldn't it be green?

 

Reviewer-related actions (such as Reviewer notes) are also blue.

 

You know, I don't mind going against the crowd and I'd be happy to chime in on how great these new icons for say a moun10bike geocoin. :D

Edited by Roman!
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NeverSummer

+NeverSummer

Posted
Posted

What's blue for?

76.png

 

Blue is for informative elements (ratings, directional symbols, etc.).

 

I got that for submitting a cache for review, shouldn't it be green?

 

Reviewer-related actions (such as Reviewer notes) are also blue.

 

You know, I don't mind going against the crowd and I'd be happy to chime in on how great these new icons for say a moun10bike geocoin. :D

Aye-yay-yay... <_<

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cerberus1

+cerberus1

Posted
Posted

I'm not even colour blindm and at times I couldn't recognise the icons by sight without the caption.

 

I could and I never needed captions for identifying e.g. PM only caches or the icon for several trackables in a cache.

With the new icon for PM only, it is so easy to confuse it with a GC which is annoying as it is important for me to recognize PM only caches already at the first sight.

 

Cezanne

 

Looked to see what all the hubbub was about and I couldn't tell the difference between PMO hides and most geocoins. As someone who tries not to hit PMO hides on the PC, this is gonna be a bother.

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NeverSummer

+NeverSummer

Posted
Posted

For anyone wondering what the new icons mean, I whipped up this list.

You're hired.

 

Seeing them all makes me wonder a couple of things.

1. Why is the "TB in cache" a different TB icon than the ones representing the movement of a TB?

2. Why is "Webcam photo taken" grey, but "Attended" is green?

3. With the background generally white, why did they pick grey? Why not black, to give better contrast?

4. Did they line up each icon on the same page like this and look it over for consistency and ease of use?

5. Why is "Needs Archived" a file folder, and not something closer to what it was before?

6. Why is "Archived" a file cabinet line drawing instead of the red folder with the downward arrow? Wouldn't that match it with the "Unarchived" icon?

7. Did anyone think this through, and think to put together a new icon FAQ to launch at the same time as the new icons?

8. Did TPTB plan an announcement at all, or just plan to unleash the changes and catch the community off guard?

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NeverSummer

+NeverSummer

Posted
Posted

So Ds and Ts below 3 are negative?

Moun10Bike said blue is for "informative elements", which the D/T stars seem to be. What makes you think they're negative? I'm seeing all stars as blue, regardless of how many stars there are.

Mine are mixed, but it appears the red starts below 2.5, not 3 as I originally posted.

Apparently you have to "clear your cache" to see them properly displayed.

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Sharks-N-Beans

+Sharks-N-Beans

Posted
Posted

So Ds and Ts below 3 are negative?

Moun10Bike said blue is for "informative elements", which the D/T stars seem to be. What makes you think they're negative? I'm seeing all stars as blue, regardless of how many stars there are.

Mine are mixed, but it appears the red starts below 2.5, not 3 as I originally posted.

Apparently you have to "clear your cache" to see them properly displayed.

Not sure what "clear your cache" means. I have 2 browsers running right now. Explorer shows all blue, Chrome is mixed.

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NeverSummer

+NeverSummer

Posted
Posted (edited)

So Ds and Ts below 3 are negative?

Moun10Bike said blue is for "informative elements", which the D/T stars seem to be. What makes you think they're negative? I'm seeing all stars as blue, regardless of how many stars there are.

Mine are mixed, but it appears the red starts below 2.5, not 3 as I originally posted.

Apparently you have to "clear your cache" to see them properly displayed.

Not sure what "clear your cache" means. I have 2 browsers running right now. Explorer shows all blue, Chrome is mixed.

This is what I am talking about

 

But, now that I kept digging in the cache listings, I think that blue stars means it is a PMO cache, and yellow is for all others. But that isn't the case as I look elsewhere. Perhaps it is the new, unannounced way to differentiate "beginner" caches?! :blink:

Edited by NeverSummer
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NeverSummer

+NeverSummer

Posted
Posted (edited)

<_< I've seen people complain about some pretty trivial things in my life, but this one takes the cake.

Sometimes straws break camel's backs. Just sayin'...

 

Also, the good ol' "if it ain't broke..." saying makes quite a few wonder what is going on. The explanation by Moun10bike gave some context, but the launch doesn't line up with the lack of communication, testing, icon descriptions, or announcements

Edited by NeverSummer
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Cdn Howlers

+Cdn Howlers

Posted
Posted

Add me to the "Grey DNF needs to go" camp. The rest is workable, though the trackable icons aren't much use for those with less than 20/20 vision.

 

The D/T thing confuses me - at first it seemed like the higher D/Ts are blue, until I spotted on with D2=Orange & T1.5=Blue. A small beta test might have helped.....

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Arndtwe

+Arndtwe

Posted
Posted

I for one really like the new icons. I feel like it has made the site a little more modern looking, which is important for a website to do. This shows that the owners/maintainers are active at upkeep on more than just this. Just be glad they do updates instead of letting things go stagnant for ages.

 

I do wonder about one thing though... Not sure if this is a bug, or if I may be confused about this. The difficulty and terrain ratings have changed color. Let me provide you with an few examples.

 

O2DgO.png

TqyFH.png

9obzx.png

vSWxb.png

 

Anyone have any ideas why there are these mixtures?

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NeverSummer

+NeverSummer

Posted
Posted

I love the new icons, they are so clean, modern and refreshing. Well done.

I like them too, to be honest. But they don't make much sense when lined up against each other; there needs to be a bit more continuity between related types. Also, the previous icons occupied much of the same pixel space, and now some leave a lot of dead space, which tends to throw off your eye.

 

Other than that, the only thing that irks me is the lack of announcements, and no updates to FAQ to clarify the new icons.

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Moun10Bike

Moun10Bike

Posted
Posted

Something else I just noticed...

 

The "Needs Maintenance" icon in the Attributes section is still showing as a red cross. Are you going to change this to line up with the new icons?

 

You are seeing the old icon. You need to do a hard refresh/clear out your browser cache. This is also why people are seeing a mix of old and new stars on the ratings.

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