I can see what you are going for there. I ask you to careful when assigning a narrative to the motivation of others - otherwise you are likely to end up in mind space that is not very well connected with reality.
From my point of view, it’s not so much that one approach is right and that all other are wrong (which is what you are implying) - it is that you are trying to make a bunch of trade-offs between the needs of different users.
Forgive me if this isn’t your point of view but I want to use a specific example. Lets say that “people can recognise colour and shape faster than they can recognise shape alone” this is true, it is also only relevant if without colour people are not able to recognise the icons fast enough for the task at hand, clearly that is the case with most people but not all people. There are situations where having strong colours in an icon has a negative impact (it can be distracting and can get in the way when evaluating an artwork). By saying that the designer is ignoring semiotic principles in this instance is to not really understand what the designer is doing.
I’m not saying Jendrzych is ignoring them; that was mainly directed at William’s aggressive no-floppies stance, but he seems to have retreated from the discussion lately. I’m not saying semiotics should be the only principle an icon designer should follow. Far from it - semiotics is just one of the zillion things you have to keep in mind. It should just not be ignored by those in charge due to their own personal beliefs (and semiotics might be a tiny bit more objective than individual beliefs). Of course you have to weigh all those different observations and opinions to try to come up with an ‘optimal’ design. And that’s really hard.
It resembles a “text writing” in my opinion. It’s not bad at all, but seems to be too ambiguous since we’ve got a whole bunch of text editing tools within the Blender.
The icon itself must be super-duper readable and as simple as possible. The less detail, the better. Paradoxically, the pencil is super-hard to depict in such a small scale.
Thus I don’t take it as a good direction.
Many words have been spilled here. I got lost a bit, being out of the network for a while. First of all, I want to emphasize that changing the icon for the change itself is not my goal. The more I drill about the “Save” icon, the more convinced I am about the validity of @William’s opinion. So - I do care about this icon change because I can. I provoke a discussion because I can. I do research because I can. I’ll change the icon, b’cause I can.
The set contains a floppy icon already, if You didn’t noticed it. It’s there, but it’s not welcome by the devs, and I understand why.
I have presented some arguments for a floppy disk, based on other icons that use old technology representations. Phone handset, cimematic camera with roll films, roll films themselves, letter envelopes, printers and so on. The problem with these arguments is that all these “old” technologies are still in use, while the floppies do not. Does someone remember ZIP cartridges? I bet most of You didn’t even know they existed, but they were used for saving data at some point of digital history. Time’s passing, technology changes and some symbols are not valid anymore. Clay tablets for instance… Best what we can do is to adopt a symbol that - to some extent - refers to the diskette’s silhouette, not making it the essence of the icon. The @thecavelap’s concept meets these requirements by extending the silhouette outline to an arrow pointing to the inside of the document / floppy disk. It’s a super simple, effective, iconic and extra-clear graphic sign.
Lets be honest - what the Save icon will look like isn’t a crucial decision, but it must follow the overall style and convention and be future proof. Each design decision is based on the analysis of a single problem and its connection with the other elements that make up the set. The set isn’t just a bunch of icons, it’s an internally organized system, as consistent as possible in the means of expression. Most critics shouting about ignorance, childliness and nonsense did not bother to analyze the logical connections between the various elements of the icon set. Knowing the essence of the subject of the discussion and its complexity is the basis for assessing the level of difficulty and the enormity of the work that has been devoted to reach where we are.
You don’t judge a book by the individual words or a single verb. Do You?
Yes, really. I’ll go a little harder then, and you’ll go a tad softer !
@jendrzych I also like @thecavelap 's design, but I feel it could be made more recognizable too. Right now it seems a little generic in that it’s really not far from a simple sheet of paper, except for the arrow pointing inwards (which is indeed clever design). However it could easily pass as “import”, “reload”, etc.
I think the paper with the inwards arrow works very well and i dont think people will confuse it since it has save right next to it also the icon isnt being used anywhere else
The point is that the icon is something more than a “paper sheet” with an arrow pointing inwards. The arrow actually builds the “paper’s” silhouette. That’s the true beauty of this icon.
Funny, you know, that could a point in favor of the floppy lobby: since floppy are not around anymore, what remains is the icon and the meaning it has nowadays: just SAVE, no hardware involved, no saving on a (what-is-it?)floppy.
On the other hand, since printers are around us and many of us own one, the printer icon for output tab in properties might be misleading.
Why not a ZIP cartridge then? Or a 5,25" floppy? Or an 8" IBM floppy? Perforated tape? Wax cylinder? They’re all gone but were widely used for recording/saving data, as the 3,5 disquette was once.
I share the words of @jendrzych.
In this concept the intention is not to annoy anyone but rather to materialize the idea that the arrow creates the silhouette of a document (which is close enough to the silhouette of a floppy). Saving a document is building or re-constructing (drawing or re-drawing) this document. To express this idea, the shape of the icon must, in my view, be very simple.
Why not both? I’d imagine an auto-save would only save the delta or changes of the file and in most apps that do this they do it in the background. So any change you make will get saved and you will have versions you can go back to. At the same time it doesn’t hurt to have a save button/command some where the user can use.
I don’t think there are any plans or a proposal yet for this. I think @William was thinking far ahead into future possibilities. An autosave could be great if implemented well. The issue is implementing it well.
You know the OSS community is an interesting thing. We have pages upon pages arguing over the same thing. If Apple changed their save icons tomorrow (Apple actually doesn’t use save icons as their HIG uses menus and their menus are usually icon less) I don’t think anyone would bat an eye and wouldn’t have a say in the matter even if they did. It’s the nature of how open the things are and how involved the community is that people can passionately argue over something that seems so insignificant.
I like the debate though. It really lets us argue both sides as to why the floppy icon became so ubiquitous to begin with. The argument for using the floppy basically keep repeating the same thing. Every other app has it so why rock the boat. The arguments for change are asking why use an icon for something that a lot of people have no real connection to. It’s really interesting imo.
However I agree with what @jendrzych wrote here. The best thing to do is to move forward to something new but at least acknowledge the floppy by evoking its shape a bit. At a glance it has the same general shape as a floppy but it’s not a floppy. I think users can get the general gist about what it is from there.
None of those were in as widespread use by consumers as the 3.5inch floppy. It was essentially the defacto standard across multiple platforms for almost 2 decades. All of the others were either early implementations across a limited range of products or were niche products that never saw widespread use.
None of those has had iconography created that has been so widely associated with the save function - and still is to this day.
Why though. If the floppy icon is considered outdated to the point it cant be used to represent save - what does acknowledging it achieve that simply keeping it would not?
Honestly - the floppy icon as save is so ubiquitous - it even has it’s own meme
Kind of a follow up to my previous post, I found a video on this same study that I found interesting. Covers floppy disks and various other things.
While I think trying to change the save icon is a misguided waste of energy, I don’t think it’s going to negatively impact the software significantly either. The reality is, Blender targets technical users and the save icon probably isn’t going to trip them up much.
Where I do disagree is the condescending assertion that people born after a certain date won’t understand what it is. Everyone is aware of technologies that were before their time. Designing on the assumption that users are ignorant, is the opposite of proper usability design, but a trap designers often fall into.
I’m confident the floppy disk icon would outperform any other icon in a usability test. I’m not necessarily opposed to changing it, but I simply don’t think it can be improved. Otherwise, we’d already be using something else.
