in

ASP.NET Weblogs

This Blog

Syndication

Jason Salas' WebLog

On-air and online: making people laugh, making people think, pissing people off

Little orange nightmare: Microsoft's new state-mindful RSS iconography

Microsoft announced a series of icons under consideration to represent various states of an RSS feed in IE7, perhaps in addition to using the proposed "Pod" graphic.  I've got to say I like this idea in theory...although it's certainly subject to mass overuse/misuse.  I hope they not go overboard with too many states (see the second option below...exactly what is "movement around a feed"?).

Quoting from MSDN:

We took a look at the prevalent icons used today but none of them fit our principles.  The Firefox icon is close, but it lacks the rectangular dimension (principle #2).  Here are some of the ideas that we’ve been playing around with:

    1 – We use a variation of the gleam to convey that feeds are updatable.
               

    2 – The ring illustrates movement around a feed.
               

    3 – This is a spark to show new information being broadcasted.
               

    4 – We use waves to show broadcasting of content.
               

    5 – This is the Beta 1 icon with our new requirements.
               

Published Oct 09 2005, 10:04 AM by guam-aspdev
Filed under: ,

Comments

 

Ryan said:

I seemed to me more that there were all concepts for the same icon, not different states for the RSS feed icon. That would explain why no one can figure out what state "activity around the feed" really would mean.
October 8, 2005 9:23 PM

Leave a Comment

(required)  
(optional)
(required)  
Add