[Design] [Proposal] Mark-up bar button visual treatments

Mimi Yin mimi at osafoundation.org
Fri Apr 7 10:29:54 PDT 2006


http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/MarkupBarVisualTreatments

Reid is ready to drop in new and improved mark-up bar icons. I'm  
going to hand off a first pass at them. However, there are still a  
number of visual design issues to iron out, which I propose we do in  
parallel with development, since I believe all of the open issues  
have to do with visual design, not behavior.

The proposal is as follows:

Change the Email icon for the Communications Stamp to something more  
generic: e.g. a Person, in an effort to make clear to the user that  
"Email" in Chandler takes a back seat to the "Information Item" the  
user interacts with.

Change the Calendar icon to a Clock for 2 reasons:

Visual consistency The calendar is very busy and consists of many  
parts. Heikki has also commented that it looks like a calculator ;o)  
A clock is much simpler and works much better at small sizes (e.g.  
Sidebar, Summary Table, Mark-up bar)
Semantic consistency The other stamping buttons are about what you  
Add to the item to place it in a different context: (e.g. Addressing  
fields for Communication the item. A checkmark for designating the  
Information Item as a Task.) The calendar is the only icon that is  
about where you put the Information Item (on the Calendar), not what  
you add to it in order to get it on the Calendar (date/time metadata).
I've mocked up both the Calendar and the Clock for comparison. (Go to  
wiki page for images)

Tooltips

Send item? Address item? Can we say Send event? if we know it's also  
an Event?
Remove addressing fields (works for both Inbound and Outbound  
communications)
Add to Task list
Remove from Task list
Add to Calendar
Remove from Calendar
Never share this item
Allow this item to be shared
I've also decided to go with the oblong lozenges because while I  
agree that the circles are pretty, the oblong lozenges create a  
natural horizontal division between the Mark-up bar and the Detail  
View, whereas the circles create a repetitive up-down wave pattern  
that distracts the eye.

Things we're not addressing in this first round of Mark-up bar  
improvements

Communications status
In versus Out
Read versus Unread
Draft versus Queued versus Sent
1st time Send/Receipt versus Update
Sub-Kinds (Different flavors of Communications, Tasks and Events)
Mimi

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