On Sep 19, 2012, at 8:41 PM, Trevor Parscal <tpars...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I'm glad this area is getting a lot of interest - unfortunately I haven't > been able to keep up on this thread but I wanted to give a suggestion > related to adding icons. > > It's reasonable to take an option that provides a URL to an icon image, but > we should have a common (customizable per skin and language) set of icons > that can be used by symbolic name, like "success", "failure", > "information", "error", etc. > > This helps in a few ways: > > - We can make sure they match the skin they are being used in > - We can internationalize them > - We can avoid having multiple icons for the same purpose > - It makes it easier to use the icon feature > > - Trevor > Interesting idea. Though I must say I was (so far) thinking quite the opposite. I like your idea as well. I was thinking not to use icons for the "type" of message. For one because it would have to be very well controlled to allow for adaption to skin, language and avoid duplication (though your proposal seems to handle that quite well). But also because: * it is hard to categorize a message in such a specific category * if possible, avoiding icons is a good thing in my opinion. Icons are nice, but sometimes a simple message suffices. But having some messages with and others without an icon doesn't seem nice either as it would break the grid and user expectation. Would we have a default icon? * it means we can't have an icon for source, only for type (because I believe having 2 icons is not an option) I think source is more important than type. Where (groups of) modules in an extension, gadgets or core are "sources". Examples of sources that could be identified by their own icon: Watchlist: * Added X to your watchlist. * An error occurred while removing X from your watchlist. * John edited X \ (snippet from edit summary) Discussion: * John sent you a personal message. # edit on user talk page.. * John started a discussion on <subject>. * John commented on <thread name>. Countervandalism Network gadgets: * Blacklisted Jack renamed X to Y. \ (log message) * John edited monitored page X. (edit summary) As for messages confirming a user's own page and user actions, I've been thinking a bit lately. Maybe a notification bubble is not the right way to communicate confirmations of user's direct own actions. Here's a brief list of such messages (similar to the kind of messages one would see in the yellow bar of Google products like Gmail and Gerrit). * Loading edit screen... * The conversation has been archived. [learn more] [undo] * Edit saved! * The page has been renamed. [undo] It feels to me like these kind of messages would only be appropiate to appear through a notification bubble if they happened externally. Or if it was like a scheduled event, (so the messages lets the user know that the scheduled action took place and that it succeeded (or failed)). If they happened as a direct consequence of a user action, maybe it should appear inside the interface where it was performed? Anyway, just my 2 cents :) -- Krinkle _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
