Let’s continue talking about removing things. But now, quite literally. Luca Ferretti and people on #gimp rightfully pointed this issue out.
From left to right in gnome-icon-theme:
- edit-delete
- list-remove
- user-trash
These metaphors have been causing quite a bit of confusion lately. The edit-delete icon is used in Empathy in the accounts list, where it seems like it indicates some kind of status. The user-trash icon is used in a lot of places for removing things. While it uses a waste basket metaphor, in a lot of cases the things that are being removed don’t actually move to a place where they can be recycled. Then there’s list-remove. I think this is the true remove icon.
Are there cases where you remove things that aren’t in a list?
Why do we even have edit-delete?
I’m leaning towards removing edit-delete from the spec and use list-remove instead, and if a remove action moves an item to a place where it can be recycled from, use user-trash.
(the situation gets even more confusing when you take the GTK stock icons into account, where edit-delete is a waste basket, another reason to make the icon naming spec and stock icons consistent in my opinion 
)
What do you think?
I think the minus sign icon (when viewed alone) is the most ambiguous of the three icons pictured in this post. While the minus sign has a clear meaning when next to a ‘+’ icon, it has less meaning when shown alone (is it a horizontal line? a rectangle? an icon that divides space vertically?).
I think the only time the list-remove icon is meaningful is when it’s placed with (I assume it would be called) list-add. I can imagine cases where just the minus symbol can be confusing to some people without other hints as to what it does (popup, label, color, etc).
I also think edit-delete is using an improper metaphor - it tells me that it means “cancel” or “no” - this doesn’t mean “delete” to me, but I’ve been trained to associate “delete” with the negative so maybe it’s better.
The trash icon, in my opinion, makes more sense but a lot of people may expect the ability to restore “deleted” items from previous training by the trash bin - which would be a hassle.
Perhaps something similar to “no entry” signs? It is red (negative), with a minus sign in a circle…?
I can tell you that my first thought was ‘wtf’ when after an update I saw evolution’s new ‘delete mail’ icon (ie. the ‘edit-delete’ icon in your series). Even after days of using it, it still trips me up. Worst icon ever.
Agreed; list-remove makes sense as “remove” is the opposite of “add”. edit-delete seems to convey “NO”, like no-left-turn signs (at least here in the US). The icon looks like it’s preventing something, rather than undoing something, as it often seems to be used.
IMO, user-trash should only be used in the conventional, items-can-be-restored sense.
edit-delete was there for something like gedit’s Edit->Delete menu item, which deletes the selected text.
That said, I will not miss it if it goes away
Here’s a question for you - more web oriented than desktop, though applicable to both.
For maintaining a piece of data, you have your classic CRUD operations - Create, Read, Update, and Delete. For toolbar or button icons, there’s reasonable consensus on Create (either a plus sign or a blank document), and likewise for Delete (a minus sign, or X).
But what kind of icon is appropriate for the operation “give me an editable view of this data so I can modify it?” I’ve never seen a good consensus on how to represent that visually…
Delete was for things like text editors, spreadsheets, graphics editors, etc… where you select a block of text, cells, images or whatever, and totally remove them from memory.
The trash icon is for the trash can. If something isn’t being sent to trash, it shouldn’t be using that icon. But you probably don’t want a big “-” image everywhere that trash icon currently is either.
And +/- really probably shouldn’t exist. They are there to fill a need of lots of applications having buttons for adding and removing things in a list (bookmarks, accounts, etc etc). But they’re basically just providing more support for bad UI design.
@Simon
You’re right, there isn’t a good icon for that yet, and I’m not sure there ever will be. It was one of the reasons why the “edit” (a paper sheet + pencil) button for the location bar was removed from nautilus, because people thought it would create new documents.
>Are there cases where you remove things that aren’t in a list?
Files in Nautilus in icon view (default)
Photos F-spot when browsed by thumbnails (default)
Events in Evolution calendar (default view)
Removing tags(i.e. photos in F-spot)
Some items might be not seen as lists items when opened in their own separate window for viewing or editing, e.g. notes in Evolution or Tomboy notes. Especially when you open them using external application.
I think that the main problem with edit-delete is not that it exists, but that the icon uses a wrong metaphor. This crossed red circle is internationally recognised as interdiction.
Other software (e.g KDE) used it for “Cancel” first.
Empathy’s use of edit-delete in the accounts list is a crime against usability. I always think “what’s wrong? why can’t it connect to any of my accounts?” when I see all those red circles.
As many are complaining about the Empathy no-connection icon:
Why not use the NM not connected icon?
edit-delete never really made sense to me visually. It just looks too much like the road sign used in Denmark to indicate that you cannot drive on a given road. I never understood why Evolution has a road sign like that next to a picture of some soft-ices (the spam/not-spam icons) next to a stop icon (GTK_STOCK_STOP I guess). How does road signs and soft-ice relate to e-mail?
Anyway, I apologise for the rant.
Søren
Why not replace edit-delete with a [x] (an X inside a square or circle) that I think we used to have and a lot of webapps still use? It’s not a great metaphor but at least people know what it does.
@Søren: you are right though, before i posted this I talked about the very same buttons in Evolution with a college
@Patrys: were it not that the cross os already being used for window-close. We may want to use it for edit-clear in search entries too…
@Rodney: it looks like they’re implementation details?
@Tomasz: But they’re still lists of things, maybe not in the literal sense of the word.
@Mike: I think it already got fixed in 2.30
@Hylke - that’s what I figured. Our product currently uses a pencil symbol for Update, but I don’t find it particularly satisfactory.
Fun fact:
Every body says the current edit-delete looks like “prohibited/not-allowed/cancel” and that an “X” should be used instead.
Evolution has it EXACTLY the other way ’round, as they’re actually using (X) to ‘cancel the current mail operation’ (Human Icon Theme here I guess, but probably the same in stock), and (/) to delete mail.
As noted: The Junk/Not Junk is really bad too.
Actually in my theme it looks more like wadded paper, which would go better with the bin/trash metaphor for deleting that mail.
We could use ⊗ (delete), ⌧ and ⌫ (clear, erase) to differentiate between those.
- “process-stop” becomes an actual stop sign (just the red octogon with white border)
- “edit-delete” becomes the current “process-stop” (white cross on red circle)
- there should be a “document-delete” icon. It could be a torn piece of paper with a small “edit-delete” emblem (analogy to current “document-new”)
- “user-trash” is pretty clear; send something to a place where it can be retrieved
- “list-remove” is useful, but only when in the right context and with proper labelling. Usually you can add/remove any number of things in an application.
Also, does anyone else think that, if there are special icons for mail, then there should be for (at least) IM and RSS as well?
See https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/humanity-icon-theme/+bug/452149
For me, the first icon is definitely not a delete icon. It’s a “forbidden sign”. Meaning that I can’t do that. I don’t see any relation with deleting something.
Worst : in Evolution, this icon is used to send messages to Trash !
An unspoiled -by background information- first reaction might be worth something. So here is mine. I resisted reading the article and caputred my very first thought with each icon. And asked my girlfriend. From left to right:
- Block
- One less, remove one.
- Move to trash.
My GF:
- Cannot do that
- Remove an item
- Delete
I think remove, delete and trash are all fundamentally different operations, and can warrant distinct icons:
remove: only deletes a reference to an entity, but that entity continues to exist
delete: completely nuke the sucker
To illustrate differences: remove a buddy from a group vs deleting him from your rooster altogether, or remove a song from banshee vs delete it from the disk too. I’d call these “edit-remove” and “edit-delete”.
Trash is when a removed item goes into a common browseable “trashed” collection (e.g. in nautilus or email client) — and is thus not deleted. It is complementary to an undo list, which cannot be “browsed” in the same sense as it can contain other operations like “add”, “change”, etc. Not sure what to call it, but “edit-trash” doesn’t sound unreasonable.
I also agree with the dismay about the above edit-delete icon, it rather means “disable” / “prohibit” / “deny” / “no” to me.
I think these are all bad in a way.
The first one doesn’t give me the message to delete anything it looks like some sort of stop sign or forbidden, like in the ghost busters movie
Second one is ok, sort of. The minus sign says remove, but I think it’s too mathematical and it’s visually not the best because it’s so small.
The third one says to me it will not be removed, just placed in some temporary trash-like place. So it’s not an actual remove, depending on the context of course.
All those delete icons are bad in my opion. The one that makes really sense is similar the the [x] ⌧ stuff: When a particular item can be created by the click on a symbol, the same symbol should exist with a little red x to remove such an item.
The idea of a generic remove icon does not work!
http://universaleditbutton.org/Universal_Edit_Button
Now I’ll echo some previous posts.
These maybe, from unicode:
⌦ U+2326 Erase to the right (Delete on keyboards)
⌧ U+2327 Clear
⌫ U+232B Erase to the left (Backspace on keyboard)
I wouldn’t use these:
⊗ U+2297 Circled times
⨂ U+2A02 N-ary circled times operator
whatever the complaints about edit-delete be looking like a stop sign may be, I still think there need to be these two different icons (edit-delete & list-remove) depending on the context used:
1. in a list view (were the minus sign of list-remove accompanied by the plus sign can clearly be identified)
2. in a (fullscreen) data entry/edit form without associated list view were a singly standing minus sign may hard to identify and you want to delete the entry itself
-> therefore the names:
list-remove: remove a child/item inside the list (not the list itself)
edit-delete: delete the entry itself (not only a child/sub-part)
The problem is wierd icon (ab)usage. You cannot really remove any of those icons since the actions described are pretty different. As most people says list-remove HAVE to be used only for lists AND only when there’s a list-add near it, otherwise a edit-delete icon should be used.
Edit-delete metaphor is lousy, we used to have a shredder in tango icon theme, which was conceptually very good, but it wasn’t working since people doesn’t recognize it (try to draw a shredder in a 16×16 canvas :-)), we did some experiments with a rubber eraser but it wasn’t clear as well. As already pointed now that we have a new process stop we can try to use a circle with an X, but we are already full of X’s…
Look at Pidgin. The “international no” sign has a very different meaning (block this user) than the minus sign (remove this user from my list). And I wouldn’t want to put my buddies in the “trash”.
All of the other x icons currently used perform actions analogous to deletion - it is the only obvious icon to use.
@anonymous: Pidgin uses its own icons for block/unblock. I know because I made them.
For me…
left: not available / no / do not
middle: remove (in particular, remove from list)
right: trash/deleted items [NOT delete item, but rather, the icon for where deleted items are]
My girlfriend…
left: no/no entry/do not
middle: don’t understand the icon
left: bin/trash
For removing an item from a list, list-remove is perfectly fine. For deleting, none of those is particularly good (though list-remove is the least bad). A red handwritten x (like this one or ✗) seems clearer to me than any of those. I thought I’d see a Tango-styled version of that in the past.
Didn’t read the whole thread =) sorry lazy.
To me originally edit-delete was an abort, emergency escape type of thing….. but after running Ubuntu Development release for a few years not to me in now means this “missing-icon”.
I really though empathy is still missing icons for things it dispalys edit-delete until I read this post.
Yes please get rid of that.
Hey,
I don’t know if this is still a burning issue, but I would like to point out a great tool to test the relevance of icons.
At usability-methods.com/ you can easily create surveys to test which icons do users associate with which functionality. The service is free for open-source projects, as the founder of usability-methods.com, Björn Balazs, is also the founder of the open source usability group in Germany, working with all kinds of great projects to improve the usability of open source projects.
hope that helps.
Anne