Change #1339667 had a related patch set uploaded (by CoderAnimeshPathak; author: CoderAnimeshPathak):

[mediawiki/core@master] TypeaheadSearch: Use cdxIconUserTalk for user talk pages

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1339667

While I like the idea I think if we were to do this, this needs to be consistent across our platforms (e.g. apps) and pages (the VisualEditor allows searching for pages for example) :

For this reason, I feel a more holistic solution might be necessary and I am not 100% sure we should just solve this for TypeaheadSearch.

Also why just user talk? Why not talk pages in general?

If we wanted to update everything it might be preferable to consider a change to PageImages and associated APIs to set the thumbnail instead of updating a single Codex component.

In general this needs some input from more people, particularly those working on talk page experience.

In T437679#12312503, @Jdlrobson-WMF wrote:

Also why just user talk? Why not talk pages in general?

+1. A talk page is a talk page, regardless of whether it’s a talk page of an article, a user, or a template.

If we wanted to update everything it might be preferable to consider a change to PageImages and associated APIs to set the thumbnail instead of updating a single Codex component.

A naïve solution along these lines could mean the same icon being downloaded ten times when one types User talk:; a Codex icon directly embedding the icons could have better performance. However, I do agree that this should be updated across all similar components (probably along with the non-talk placeholder – the current, default placeholders also differ between the search and the VE screenshots). Maybe there could be a Codex/OOUI component that provides the page image, so that the same code can be reused across search, VE, WikiEditor etc.?

I hadn't thought that anyone (@CoderAnimeshPathak or anyone else) would jump on this and try to address it quite so quickly. I was expecting it to be ignored for months like most of my other requests. And, I think it's more important to sort out the related T437569: Use Codex special page icon as thumbnail in search suggestions and T437676: Search results use inappropriate “missing image” codex instead of article codex first.

In T437679#12312503, @Jdlrobson-WMF wrote:

Also why just user talk? Why not talk pages in general?

Thanks for the comment.

I do think there should be an icon for talk pages, but at the moment, there is no cdxIcontalk icon (perhaps there should be). Refer to https://doc.wikimedia.org/codex/latest/icons/all-icons.html

But the icon does exist for user talk pages:

I think a talk page icon would be easy to mock something up like this maybe:

Why not just use userTalk for all talk namespaces? I don’t think the icon is specific to user talk pages.

Or we could use the icon that the Vector 2022 sticky header already uses for the talk page link, speechBubbles: