The ubiquitous icon

[Sherry C]

Howdy John,

Thanks so much for your thoughts on the interaction between real people (our musicians!) and software. It's really quite helpful to us to know what aspects of the software make things easier or harder for the ultimate goal of making music. Our goal with the software is to provide an easy to use tool - a helpful partner - in the music making process. We want to know what areas need improvement, and how best to make such improvements for the most users.

You mentioned that you wouldn't take a stab at any specific icons, but perhaps in lieu of that you could point us to a program that has done a good job of creating icons that are easy to associate with different tasks that are closely related. As you mentioned, that "close but a little different" aspect is an issue, because so many tasks are closely related with the exception of one aspect of their functionality (eg. "shifting" commands).

Thanks!
Sherry

[jss]

Hi Sherry,
It's been several years since I actively wrote software - used mainly the MSoft Visual Studio C/C++ (which was the best Dev environment I have ever used - and that included several hosted on unix-like systems). However the icon editor was basic. So as you guessed, used icon editing tools - but I'd really need to go and look at what they were. Probably though newer ones are out there now - will take a look when I get a chance as am still interested in s/ware even though have retired :-)

It always surprised me how much work could go into the design of a good icon. After all I suppose, they are a little window/gateways into many areas of a software product and if they aren't showing the way clearly users tend it ignore them or forget what they do. Yes as as we have both said, that "very similar with different functions" is a design problem.

I can see the hours of work that have gone into NC icons, from design to construction it's a significant task.

I'll have a think as to actual designs for the performance and notation aspect - it'd be interesting to do - if I get chance that is. Have a few project on the go just now.

So glad to see NS is receptive to user suggestions/ideals.

regards
-John

[jss]

Hi
This is a rather interesting link maybe worth a read in connection with this thread. The first very point is the one we have made here.


http://turbomilk.com/blog/cookbook/c...n_icon_design/


regards
-John