Paul [pwd] Reporter
	Description • 12 years ago

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0
Build ID: 20120819030601

Steps to reproduce:

Currently this uses the application icon for whatever it was installed for, however it's not very intuitive, while it's an improvement on the sync icon that's used for desktop, it doesn't communicate what it is. What would help is something perhaps and overlay at the bottom right with a tab icon or the sync icon on it.

It should also be noted that while Sync is tied to a single installation, it's use case does differ. Granted it's an edge case, but users may send a tab to a device and then use the Sync'd tab with a different browser.

	Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] (PTO until Montreallhands August 21, 2023)
	Comment 1 • 12 years ago

Hi Paul,

> Currently this uses the application icon for whatever it was installed for,
> however it's not very intuitive, while it's an improvement on the sync icon
> that's used for desktop, it doesn't communicate what it is. What would help
> is something perhaps and overlay at the bottom right with a tab icon or the
> sync icon on it.

Yeah, I once pushed for icons that conveyed "Sync + Firefox version" but didn't get any traction.  A quick search didn't reveal the correct ticket.

The consensus seems to be that the majority users don't differentiate Firefox from Sync, so we don't introduce a foreign concept into the iconography.

> It should also be noted that while Sync is tied to a single installation,
> it's use case does differ. Granted it's an edge case, but users may send a
> tab to a device and then use the Sync'd tab with a different browser.

I suppose.  I don't think this a major issue.

PS.  All these icon/branding issues are somewhat more complicated than they look, since we want to support multiple Fennec versions as seamlessly as possible.  For example, I changed the generic "sync rotating arrows icon" to the "Fennec package icon" so that users could differentiate all the different FxSync's installed.

	Paul [pwd] Reporter
	Comment 2 • 12 years ago

Hey there Nick, thanks for taking the time to respond to me. Here's my thoughts on the matter:

The sync icon never made sense TBH. No disrespect to anyone involved in designing it. It's the same icon that wyUpdate uses. That said, it's never fit with the Firefox branding in any of it's iterations (the only 3D icon in the options). Less so with Fennec (the only icon with Fennec and visibly more three-dimensional than any of the logos; Firefox, Aurora or Nightly).

The idea of simplification and unification is one that should be wholeheartedly supported, but not at the expense of intuitiveness. For example, all Android users are taught what a share icon is. So why do we not engage them in that regard by using the share icon along with Fennec icon for received tabs? It instantly denotes that this is something shared.

Associating the logo with Firefox is most certainly an improvement. But it should denote it's relation rather than simply posing as Fennec. And by being more intuitive at a glance (overlaying with a paper-plane for example), we simply the experience for our users. Also you remove possible confusion for Aurora and Nightly users, who may confuse a Sync'd tab notification with an update notification. After all, as things currently stand, they share a notification icon.

	Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] (PTO until Montreallhands August 21, 2023)
	Comment 3 • 12 years ago

(In reply to Paul [sabret00the] from comment #2)
> Hey there Nick, thanks for taking the time to respond to me. Here's my
> thoughts on the matter:
> 
> The sync icon never made sense TBH. No disrespect to anyone involved in
> designing it. It's the same icon that wyUpdate uses. That said, it's never
> fit with the Firefox branding in any of it's iterations (the only 3D icon in
> the options). Less so with Fennec (the only icon with Fennec and visibly
> more three-dimensional than any of the logos; Firefox, Aurora or Nightly).

I agree.

> Associating the logo with Firefox is most certainly an improvement. But it
> should denote it's relation rather than simply posing as Fennec. And by
> being more intuitive at a glance (overlaying with a paper-plane for
> example), we simply the experience for our users. Also you remove possible
> confusion for Aurora and Nightly users, who may confuse a Sync'd tab
> notification with an update notification. After all, as things currently
> stand, they share a notification icon.

I can easily update the icons but I'm not going to make any branding decisions.  If you want to loop ibarlow or smartell in and get product vision for updating the Send Tab to Device activity icon, and the Received Tab notification icon, I'm on board to implement.

	Paul [pwd] Reporter
	Comment 4 • 12 years ago

Ian, Sean, thoughts on this?

	Paul [pwd] Reporter
	Comment 5 • 10 years ago

So this bug just randomly popped into my head, I don't have the exact assets. But it's basically just the share icon we're using shooting into the silhouette we use for updates on nightly. I figure that someone from the UX team would probably give it the nuance it deserves or even have a different idea, but we certainly shouldn't be using full colour notification icons any more.

	Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!
	Comment 6 • 10 years ago

Hm, nice idea Paul. I agree, the color icon in the notification bar seems odd.

I think as we come up with a more complete story (working in Desktop side as well) around this feature, we might have an icon that is branded for this. But, for now I think the quick and easy win here would be to use our one-tone Firefox icon.

NI-ing rnewman on this since we talked about this before in another bug (that i can't find right now :)

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 7 • 10 years ago

Notification icons should certainly be monochrome.

I agree with Anthony's direction: as we get a better story on desktop for remote tabs, and then for sending tabs, we'll very likely develop a branding story, too.

So in the mean time, let's just take the monochrome browser icon.


Unfortunately, I can't find it in the tree!

I see icon_search_empty_firefox and ic_status_logo, which are always the Firefox logo. And we have branding/../icon.png, which are full-color. But we don't have per-channel monochrome.

Anthony, do we have those assets already? Or can you pull them together?

	Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!
	Comment 8 • 10 years ago

Give these a try! White fox, 1 tone, 24 dp.

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 9 • 10 years ago

Mmm, smells like Christmas.

	Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!
	Comment 10 • 9 years ago

Ping on the status here :)

This will probably surface itself to users more now in light of all the send tab improvements mcomella has been working on.

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 11 • 9 years ago

Anthony: are you (and our brand guidelines) happy using these silhouette Firefox icons for third-party browsers based on Fennec, and for our Nightly and Aurora channels?

If not, could you add some unofficial equivalents?

	Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!
	Comment 12 • 9 years ago

I'm going to say, specifically for this bug: yes.

For notifications tray purposes, this is our most fitting visual. The full color build icon looks out of place. 

I may even go as far as proposing the share plane for this bug, but we should start with the 1 tone fox and see how all our notifications (think tab queues, etc) work together.

	Paul [pwd] Reporter
	Comment 13 • 9 years ago

(In reply to Anthony Lam (:antlam) from comment #12)
> I'm going to say, specifically for this bug: yes.
> 
> For notifications tray purposes, this is our most fitting visual. The full
> color build icon looks out of place. 
> 
> I may even go as far as proposing the share plane for this bug, but we
> should start with the 1 tone fox and see how all our notifications (think
> tab queues, etc) work together.

We're using the silhouette for an awful lot, updates on nightly, synced tabs and queued tabs. It's really becoming useless at a glance. That's why bug 1146845 was created, to alleviate this problem.

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 14 • 9 years ago

This needs a build and test.

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 15 • 9 years ago

Build:

https://people.mozilla.com/~rnewman/fennec/42-multi.apk

Anthony, take a look?

	Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only; no longer employed by Mozilla]
	Comment 16 • 9 years ago

Comment on attachment 8632983 [details] [diff] [review]
Use flat icons for send tab notification. v1

Review of attachment 8632983 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

wfm.

Make sure these icons are compressed.

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 17 • 9 years ago

(In reply to Michael Comella (:mcomella) from comment #16)

> Make sure these icons are compressed.

When have I ever let you down, Michael? :D

	Richard Newman [:rnewman] Assignee
	Comment 18 • 9 years ago

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/a5a32a0722f9

	Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!
	Comment 19 • 9 years ago

Could we possibly update the copy in here too? Just to keep it a little more consistent. :D 

New tab in Firefox
*Link*

	Carsten Book [:Tomcat]
	Comment 20 • 9 years ago

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a5a32a0722f9