telophase: (Default)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2015-03-02 01:27 pm

(no subject)

Hey guys--can you take this survey for me about icon choices on our website? (Note: this isn't the official survey I sent out to the library staff and which will probably go out later in the year to the university's community and whose answers will take priority over anything I learn here; I just got curious as to whether the results would be different for a different population, so made a duplicate of the survey to see.)

The only things you'll need to know if you're not familiar with our library are (1) "FrogScholar" is basically a search engine that searches a group of the library databases, plus the catalog, plus a few other things. (2) "Database" is a broad term for libraries that basically means "online reference works": they could contain journal articles, abstracts, company information, encyclopedias, directories, ebooks, chemical information, and all sorts of other stuff. And, yes, data sets. smile emoticon*

* I copied this text from my Facebook post and the smiley transferred as that. I found it amusing.
yhlee: (FMA:B Mustang Hellbound)

[personal profile] yhlee 2015-03-02 07:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Done!

I am, um, really bad at icons, though, so I don't think my answers are going to be very helpful...
batwrangler: Just for me. (Default)

[personal profile] batwrangler 2015-03-02 09:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I recognized the stacked platters but thought it was too obscure for general use. :)
movingfinger: (Default)

[personal profile] movingfinger 2015-03-02 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Nice. Is it okay to use the same icon for the two searches, assuming the entry blanks will be in different parts of the page? It's hard to distinguish between "search this" and "search that" otherwise.

ETA: Searching the library's website only is for things like "opening hours" or "holiday" or "reserve study room" right?
Edited (clarification) 2015-03-02 20:44 (UTC)
movingfinger: (Default)

[personal profile] movingfinger 2015-03-02 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I like the icons, and I find them unambiguous.

(I did know about the database one, but I can't recall where I've seen it before. Skeumorphism FTW.)
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Night Vale (credit: <user name="busaikko)

[personal profile] yhlee 2015-03-02 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I expected to be an outlier confused person in your survey. I regularly get my Thunderbird, Scrivener, Notepad++, and Chrome icons confused. I am just not visual. :] My brain only registers "thing of this size" not so much, you know, color or shape.