Various issues with OOUI's MediaWiki theme icons
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Description

I wrote these in a private email to someone a year ago when the new icons were being introduced. Some of them got fixed since. Most did not.

Mostly in the order of decreasing severity:

NOT ACTIONABLE

The new icons look very distinct from the old icons (just look at undo/redo or next/previous, and compare to the new arrows and carets). Annoying how no one thought to redraw basic things like these or a help icon in line with the new design.

The cross-out lines are in different directions in different icons – T133076
~~'betaLaunch' being English-specific (and just plain stupid, seriously; we don't need visual puns in icons, they're supposed to be intuitive)~~ WONTFIX
'stop' icon having inverted color scheme
~~'templateAdd' icon resembling nothing at all~~ WONTFIX
~~'userInactive' icon looking stoned~~ – opposed, subjective impression, without constructive input "wontfix"
'articleCheck' RTL having a flipped tick, unlike the 'check' icon

Details

	Project	Branch	Lines +/-	Subject
	oojs/ui	master	+0 -11	Remove confusing 'betaLaunch' icon
	oojs/ui	master	+1 -1	icons: Give "Stop" a filled background, aligned with others in the pack

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		Status	Subtype	Assigned	Task
		Resolved		Volker_E	T132991 Various issues with OOUI's MediaWiki theme icons
		Resolved		Volker_E	T133076 Cross-out lines in OOUI's MediaWiki theme icons are pointing to different directions

Event Timeline

matmarex created this task.Apr 19 2016, 12:04 AM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptApr 19 2016, 12:04 AM

Jdforrester-WMF renamed this task from Various issues with MediaWiki theme icons to Various issues with OOUI's MediaWiki theme icons.Apr 19 2016, 12:33 AM

Jdforrester-WMF added a project: UI-Standardization.

Volker_E added a subscriber: Volker_E.Apr 19 2016, 12:55 AM

Does they react to RTL at all?
When is this a necessity? How about traffic signs in RTL language countries? Maybe @Mooeypoo can get us good insights here?

It is sometimes a necessity to flip for RTL (e.g. for next/previous or undo/redo arrows – "forward" is "towards the left" for RTL humans :) ). Mostly we do it for consistency (many MediaWiki theme icons have these weird "rounded" bottom-right corners, and it's easier to flip all icons with them even if we don't need to otherwise, than to re-draw the few we'd have to flip).

Volker_E created subtask T133076: Cross-out lines in OOUI's MediaWiki theme icons are pointing to different directions.Apr 19 2016, 5:40 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: TerraCodes. · View Herald TranscriptApr 19 2016, 5:40 PM

Jdforrester-WMF triaged this task as Medium priority.Apr 20 2016, 9:55 PM

Danny_B moved this task from Unsorted to Icons standardization on the UI-Standardization board.May 6 2016, 8:09 PM

Jdforrester-WMF closed subtask T133076: Cross-out lines in OOUI's MediaWiki theme icons are pointing to different directions as Resolved.Jul 4 2016, 7:30 AM

Volker_E updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 4 2016, 9:03 AM

Volker_E updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 4 2016, 10:01 AM

Jdforrester-WMF lowered the priority of this task from Medium to Low.Jul 4 2016, 10:01 AM

Jdforrester-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)

@Mooeypoo Are 'Check' and 'ArticleCheck' icons from RTL perspective good (now) – checkmarks not changing direction?

Volker_E updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 4 2016, 10:24 AM

'betaLaunch' being English-specific (and just plain stupid, seriously; we don't need visual puns in icons, they're supposed to be intuitive) – resolved as of before OOjs Ui v0.17.5

How is it resolved? We still have that icon, and it's still a rocket/spaceship.

@matmarex The sentence from the task description is misleading. So you find the rocket to be a "pun"? Where is the icon still in use?

It is not in use anywhere, as far as I know, same as most of the icons. (All the more reason to get rid of it.)

@matmarex Ok, let's kill it then.

Change 297395 had a related patch set uploaded (by VolkerE):
Remove confusing 'betaLaunch' icon

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/297395

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Jul 5 2016, 1:36 PM

@matmarex “'templateAdd' icon resembling nothing at all” – any constructive comment here?

Do you prefer it phrased as "please redesign the 'templateAdd' icon to represent the action of adding a template, or remove it since it is unused – not even VisualEditor uses it in its menu for template adding, because it's so non-intuitive and resembling nothing at all"? :)

Change 297405 had a related patch set uploaded (by VolkerE):
Invert “Stop” icon to align with other icons

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/297405

@matmarex My last comment was seemingly unclear. Do you have a constructive comment how ”add template” should be resembled for your satisfaction and understanding instead?

Volker_E added a project: UI-Standardization-Kanban.Jul 5 2016, 2:31 PM

I think it should be removed.

Volker_E moved this task from Backlog to Doing… on the UI-Standardization-Kanban board.Jul 5 2016, 3:08 PM

Jdforrester-WMF closed this task as Resolved.Jul 8 2016, 7:24 PM

Jdforrester-WMF assigned this task to Volker_E.

Jdforrester-WMF removed a project: Patch-For-Review.

Jdforrester-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)

Change 297405 merged by jenkins-bot:
icons: Give "Stop" a filled background, aligned with others in the pack

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/297405

Change 297395 abandoned by VolkerE:
Remove confusing 'betaLaunch' icon

Reason:
Abandoned for broader discussion at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T141801

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/297395