UniversalWikiEditButton/Discussion
Contents
Purpose
Brand wiki across sites. Make it easier for a newcomer to find the all important "edit" button. Desirable properties of an "Edit This" button include the following:
- Small: similar in size to the RSS feed icon
- Bold: catches the eye, draws attention
- Distinctive: evokes editing or collaborating ("Edit This" or "Collaborate on This")
- Inviting: you want to click it
- Informative: this page has wiki functionality
found at Commons:Image:WikEd_logo64x64.gif
Color
green: welcoming, lively color, organic growth, life
- The color green was chosen simply because it has been used in other sketches.
- Green should not be considered a final color.
Shape
- Two variations on the rounded box were chosen because of the similarity to the RSS icon.
- Considerations to the rounded box should be made, however, sticking to an icon that is essentially square may not be necessary--as we can see in the triangle above. What are the pros/cons of designing within a square space instead of, say an oblong shape?
- How simple is too simple? and where do we draw a line at "universality," especially with the concept of language?
Symbolism
- We should step away from overly used symbols that don't actually represent that which is our goal.... (which is?)
- Men at Work: Physical realm; construction, or "Under Construction," work to the point of toil, action speaks more to creating something entirely new. Wikis are constantly "People at Work." (or is that People at Play?)
- Pen, Pencil, Pencil & Paper, etc: Physical realm, distant connection to computers & online editing, seems to represent more of a task at hand, rather than a collaborative experience.
- However, it does quickly evoke Writing and Language and Drawn Thoughts...
- Although a chalk symbolizes collaborative writing...
To edit something, to change something, to work on something. Road signs are a well known set of icons. Men at work is what somehow comes close to it. An example I just found. Just wanna say we need some brainstorming. ;) The men at work sign is by far too complex. The rss icon works even 12 x 12 px - we need something as simple as that. That said the moin-moin empty bubble is pretty good. Maybe put ... (three dots) in the center of it for "something" to say/write?
Usage Guidelines
Perhaps we could learn something from the usage guidelines for the rss feed icon at: http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/feed-icon-guidelines/
Publishing the Standard
In the vein of http://www.feedicons.com/, I've reserved a spate of domain names that can be used to publish the standard once we reach consensus on it if we'd like. The strikeouts were already registered by someone else (parked pages we could probably purchase if we want to).
-
editbutton.com - editbutton.org
- editbuttons.com
- editbuttons.org
-
editicon.com - editicon.org
-
editicons.com - editicons.org
-
wikibutton.com -
wikibutton.org -
wikibuttons.com - wikibuttons.org
-
wikiicon.com - wikiicon.org
- wikiicons.com
- wikiicons.org
Licensing the Result
In the spirit of AssumeGoodFaith, I think the license should be PublicDomain so that it can be used as widely and creatively as possible. The flip-side (which seems a bit anti-TheWikiWay would be to copyright it and grant a license that restricts the use to certain accepted cases in order not to dilute the symbol's power. This seems like a pretty clear case of SocialContract ... NotLegalCode.
I suggest making it a CommunityMark (like "BarCamp" is and to some extent, the FeedIcon itself). It would be the right thing for a universal edit button, and would also lend support to the CommunityMark concept. -- PeterKaminski
Agree - trademark should be registered that represents confornmity to a ruleset about that type of wiki
- public wiki (open particiaption, all indians no chiefs, public wiki guidelines in effect)
- community wiki (open participation, local guidelines in effect)
- protected wiki (requires registration/authentification)
- secure wiki (edit by invitation/application)
these can be conveyed by different colors?
Brainstorming
- Why does the RSS icon work?
- Simplicity. The image consists of a square containing one quarter of three concentric circles.
- Ping! The idea of RSS as a feed, an outgoing source of data, coupled with pinging is hinted at with these shapes, which could represent:
- a radar screen, bouncing back info from a target
- a satellite sending out information whilst receiving
- As an icon its goal is simply to inform of a feed. It is not a call to action.
Usability testing
A quick a dirty method for usability testing the icon is as follows:
- For the set of edit icons (including existing ones like the MoinMoin comic bubble, or the ubiquitous pen),
- take one control icon (say, a green dot)
- and take N (e.g. 3) random edit icons.
- Randomly permute this set of N+1 icons
- and display this set to
- a randomly selected user
- and ask the user to choose which single icon means 'edit'.
- Run this experiment many, many, many, many times,
- and choose the icon that receives the most votes,
- provided it has been selected more than the others a stastically significant amount.
Simple Branding i.e. CommunityMark
made by Helge Fahrnberger. Used on a couple of Wikis, eg. barcamp.at and osafa.org (also in french, portuguese and swahili). ReiniUrban used it on his company internal closed PhpWiki at RoCoCoCamp.info and mentioned that it was on many Austrian wikis, floating right at the top. No edit functionality. There are black, blue and yellow examples.
Another simple branding PhpWiki used in 2004 
, combining the edit button with the logo. But it was too ugly.
Auto-Discovery
Maybe what we are talking about is a button that shows up in the url bar to let folks know the page they are on is a wiki. MarkDilley
rel-edit
I also want to mention that I've proposed a "rel-edit" microformat; see http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2007-May/009693.html]. --Evan 18:17, 25 May 2007 (PDT)
This is great! microformats all the way! --Vinh Nguyen