1433654 - Improve spellcheck icon

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Theme, enhancement)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: spelling.svg

The new icon for the spellcheck looks too large and one leg of the "A" in the icon is short. I started a talk about this via PM, and Richard has come up with a better icon, which looks a lot better.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: spellcheck-icon-compare.png

Here's a screenshot showing the new icon on top and the current one below.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Comment on attachment 8946050 [details]
spelling.svg

Yes, this looks normal now. Nice. This can definitely work.

Have you tried a bigger checkmark?

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

I have a question though: Was there any need for a new icon at all? The existing icon in the release (a simple checkmark) looks much clearer to me, and less ambiguous. We also have "A" in icons about font, so imho the mental processing load to understand the new icon is bigger than the simple checkmark, combined with the button text ("Spelling"):

> ✓ Spelling

Comment 4

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

(In reply to Thomas D. (currently busy elsewhere) from comment #2)
> Comment on attachment 8946050 [details]
> spelling.svg
> 
> Have you tried a bigger checkmark?

The bigger checkmark would hide too much from the "A", to make it not good recognizable as a "A". It looks then almost like a slash.

Comment 5

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

I don't like the new spellcheck icon much either. It looks much too big compared to the send icon, and the left leg is too long. Let's ask the original creator.

Comment 6

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

Already answered Richard via email: Looks good to me! Definite improvement :)

Comment 7

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Thomas D. (currently busy elsewhere) from comment #3)
> I have a question though: Was there any need for a new icon at all? The
> existing icon in the release (a simple checkmark) looks much clearer to me,
> and less ambiguous. We also have "A" in icons about font, so imho the mental
> processing load to understand the new icon is bigger than the simple
> checkmark, combined with the button text ("Spelling"):
> 
> > ✓ Spelling

Before we proceed, any thoughts on this one?

Comment 8

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Attachment: 1433654.png - screenshot of add-ons manager

(In reply to Thomas D. (currently busy elsewhere) from comment #7)
> > > ✓ Spelling
> Before we proceed, any thoughts on this one?
Well, the "A" with with a little check mark stuck to its right leg seems to be establishing itself as related to dictionaries and spellcheck, see Add-on manager. A check mark along doesn't really relate to spelling, so I'd prefer the "A".

Richard's new proposal looks good.

As a different issue, the icon on the compose toolbar looks OK, in the Add-on manager I see a vertical artefact, is that expected?

Comment 9

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

(In reply to Thomas D. (currently busy elsewhere) from comment #7)
> (In reply to Thomas D. (currently busy elsewhere) from comment #3)
> > I have a question though: Was there any need for a new icon at all? The
> > existing icon in the release (a simple checkmark) looks much clearer to me,
> > and less ambiguous. We also have "A" in icons about font, so imho the mental
> > processing load to understand the new icon is bigger than the simple
> > checkmark, combined with the button text ("Spelling"):
> > 
> > > ✓ Spelling
> 
> Before we proceed, any thoughts on this one?

Just a checkmark is a bit vague IMO. In the icon, the "A" represents text, and the checkmark represents the fact that it's correct. The relation of both means "correct text", hence spelling.


> As a different issue, the icon on the compose toolbar looks OK, in the Add-on manager I see a vertical artefact, is that expected?

Not sure, I didn't make the icon. Feel free to file an issue here however: https://github.com/FirefoxUX/icons/issues

Comment 10

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Done: https://github.com/FirefoxUX/icons/issues/56

Comment 11

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: spellcheck-icon.patch

This is the icon I already proposed via mail and which is on the screenshot. It's now only optimized in file size.

Comment 12

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Actually Richard, could you please take a look at the answers in https://github.com/FirefoxUX/icons/issues/56. They don't want to change the FF icon used for the download of additional dictionaries.

So perhaps we can make that icon better for ourselves.

Comment 13

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

The problem of the add-ons- and prefs icons is that they are created as 16px icons and then scaled to 24px. To make them sharp/pixel perfect we'd need 24px icons.

Comment 14

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/beb37e224f04c8bfa18974e4a14806b8e8c3b143
Improve spellcheck icon. r=ntim