I think this is known and intentional (as thanks relates to users). I personally feel the icons are sufficiently different although maybe both having a smile is the cause of conflict. Designers what is your opinion? The square frowny face is the opposite of thank no? That is the impression the UI gives to me.

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Jon Robson <jrobson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

I want May to weigh in on this, but she's having some issues joining the list, will be resolved soon. * * * * *Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman> On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Quiddity &lt;pandiculation(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

"I don't want to be dismissive but we have so many more important conversations to be having and issues to be resolving than this. If there was some outpouring of user complaints and issues over this (like there was over the use of a heart) i'd be more inclined to focus more effort on it, but that simply hasn't happened." This isn't a bug resolution, it's a prioritization. It's already a lowest

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Trevor Parscal &lt;tparscal(a)wikimedia.org&gt;wrote;wrote: I think we need to separate out the discussion for each of the icons. It sounds like the consensus right now is that... -- Some people don't like the user icon, independent of thanks -- Some people don't like the thanks icon, independent of the what the mobile user icon is. -- Doesn't sound like a lot of people think the original problem Kaldari and Jon brought up (that right now they look somewhat similar) is that big of a deal. Jared echoed this just now and I agree. If the above is accurate we can call the case closed on Kaldari's original question. ;) -- Steven Walling, Product Manager https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 2:52 PM, May Tee-Galloway &lt;mgalloway(a)wikimedia.org I am fully in agreement with your goal, but I think this is just a wrong way to go about it. It is just too obvious and weak a method for engendering a nicer community. People are nice to each other when they have empathy. People have empathy for each other when A) they know who someone is B) are able to put themselves in their shoes. I am not able to empathize with a generic smiley face. I'm able to empathize with a unique individual. So I think the smiley face icon both defies the normal design pattern here and doesn't accomplish the intended goal. This is similar the exhortation to "Be nice!" in the Flow input area. Wikipedia editors (new and old) are very smart people. They are just as likely to feel talked down to and insulted by cutesy instructions like this, and may in fact be meaner in reaction to it ("You can't tell _me_ how to talk to people."). We can collectively think of more effective ways of creating more friendly discussion spaces and creating empathy in general. -- Steven Walling, Product Manager https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Jared Zimmerman < jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: Now you're just trolling me. :) For those not in the joke: we've had long discussions about this before. I am not in favor. I won't hijack this thread for discussing the pros and cons of avatars. If mobile wants to try it as a beta/alpha experiment to replace the smiley face, god be with them. -- Steven Walling, Product Manager https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

On my desk there is a book called “Understanding Comics”. It has a whole section that goes into how various degrees of fidelity with comic drawings, icons, and photographs create empathic connections. I would encourage everyone to read this. Your take away is likely going to be that you shouldn’t show any kind of facial features at all, nor should you pick a color for your icon other than black, white, or grey.

Hi, There are different topics discussed here: *Similar icons* Similar icons are not bad thing per se, provided that (a) they are distinguishable, and (b) the similarities and differences create a system that makes sense (in which case facilitate learnability). For example, the Facebook app for Android (view example<http://i.imgur.com/7efCJFw.png>) shows the following icons: three lines (hamburger) to represent a list of options, a human silhouette to represent friend request notifications, and the human silhouette with three lines to represent your list of friends. In our case, a callout represents a message, a smiling face is a user, and a smiling face within a callout represents sending a message of gratitude to a user. So I think that it makes sense for the representations of such elements to have much in common. The relevant question here in my opinion is whether this system works. For that, personally I really like to evaluate icons in context: ask a user a task that requires identifying, understanding, and using the icons, and identify problems. *Faces in icons* Faces are a powerful tool to attract our attention<http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/0…pg>, so they should be used with caution. Many sites use your own picture to represent you as a user. Seeing your own picture is very effective to attract your attention. Using a face to represent the user goes along those lines as an alternative to use profile pictures. A face also adds a human touch. Chrome<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/why-cant-error-messages-… or YouTube<http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c19df53ef0168e89f2… use them in error messages. The Android contacts and the messaging app icons<http://developer.android.com/design/media/iconography_launcher_exa… may be the closest examples to our context (use of faces related to communicating with people). *The flag icon* Adding a face to the flag icon was just an attempt I did to extend the system (that probably went too far). The rationale was just to present "thank" and "report" as alternative actions. Although we want to move from a mental model of voting (e.g., thumbs up/down), I wanted to keep the UI compatible with users that came with that mental model. If a regular flag is used, actions will look independent (and not helping to understand one another). However, it provides two bigger benefits: (a) avoid having too many faces, (b) consistency with flag icons used in other contexts. So I'm happy to replace this with the standard one. Pau On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Quiddity &lt;pandiculation(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Pau Giner Interaction Designer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

Steven, it sounds like you're proposing we allow for user customizable photo avatars. * * * * *Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman> On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 3:11 PM, Steven Walling &lt;swalling(a)wikimedia.org&gt;wrote;wrote: _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design