13

My goodness, for those of us who are not hip, please put text under the infinity symbol that apparently means 'link'. Not intuitive at all. Tooltips are nice, but text is nicer.

alt text

7
  • Are you referring to the toolbox on the page where you enter your questions/answers?
    – 8128
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 7:44
  • Yes. Not a huge deal I guess, but still, the rest of the stack sites have differing but consistently recognizable icon work. ( text is the best icon though)
    – chiggsy
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 8:51
  • 6
    +1, the link icon is not intuitive at all.
    – Isaiah
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 16:02
  • I've grown accustomed to entering the markdown for Links and Images as I type, though I agree this was a rough "discovery" item when AU first launched.
    – Marco Ceppi Mod
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 19:47
  • Oooh I can do Ctrl+L as a shortcut! I like keyboard shortcuts....
    – 8128
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 20:07
  • I also don't think the other symbols, Blockquote and Code, are particularly intuitive. Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 20:40
  • Ctrl-L is hyperlink shortcut? OLE! Thanks!
    – chiggsy
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 22:55

3 Answers 3

1

This is one take I've been working on.

alt text

It's a bit big, so I ended up scaling it down a little and included it in this mock up.

alt text

This thing is still monstrous. So I'll continue to work and hopefully refine this idea. I've included the two SVG (simple and "detailed") if anyone wants a starting base.

After some more manipulation.

alt text

alt text

SVG Source Regular: (#333333) Hover: (#DD4C00)

7
  • Nice! That's all it takes, now I look and see "Bold, Italic, Link, quote,(wtf) , img" But that's ok, context can be measured by aggregation, <$> must be code, because that goes with hyperlinks, blockquotes and image tags in a gui for webpage comments.
    – chiggsy
    Commented Dec 12, 2010 at 22:52
  • 1
    Marco, great! i'll put it in the sprite in the next few days.
    – Jin
    Commented Dec 13, 2010 at 7:06
  • 1
    @Jin Thank you very much! I've been between keeping and dropping the underline - so I'll leave that up to you. I think the simplicity of "no underline" works better with the current icon set.
    – Marco Ceppi Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2010 at 11:20
  • 2
    How about just an image of <a> with an underline. I know it's kind of nerdy, but this is a nerdy place, and many people will recognize it.
    – poolie
    Commented Dec 14, 2010 at 0:03
  • @Marco: Good job; the bigger version is easier to identify, though. Perhaps try rotating it so it runs diagonally? I might give it a try if I get the time. Commented Dec 18, 2010 at 1:57
  • @Marco I have updated the image sprite with your version. it will be in the next deployment.
    – Jin
    Commented Dec 20, 2010 at 5:39
  • @Jin It looks great (I'm biased) thanks!
    – Marco Ceppi Mod
    Commented Dec 20, 2010 at 17:15
4

This isn't an answer, but an observation of other "Popular" tools implementation of "Hyperlink" icon

OpenOffice 3

alt text

Microsoft Office Word 2000-2007

alt text

Google Docs

alt text

Our icon should implement two of the three options.

  • Blank Page
  • Globe/World
  • Chain Link

Doing any two combination of three in mono-chrome should improve the current "Infinity" look of the icon.

2

I actually thought this wasn't even possible. I simply resorted to doing my hyperlinks manually and I didn't care enough to check what the infinity symbol meant.

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