Option to force default icon - Resubmission

[nacbrie]

Title:
Option to force default icon - Resubmission

Area:
icons, display options

Summary:
I would like an option to view users' default icons instead of the selected icons, but with a way of showing that a non-selected icon is displayed and an easy way of revealing the intended icon.

Description:
Background: In November, noracharles posted a suggestion for an 'Option to force default icon when viewing "my style"'. Essentially, their suggestion was to allow logged-in users the option of viewing people's default icons, regardless of which icon had been chosen, or a method of assigning icons to users. They also suggested style=mine as a way of implementing this. The reasoning behind the suggestion was usability - some users use icons as methods of identification, and people using non-default icons results in confusion.

Original suggestion: http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/179038.html

The reaction was mixed, with some users supportive of the suggestion and others opposed to it. While a significant part of the discussion was about the use of style=mine or the implications of being able to assign icons to users, some discussion was around the concept of 'being able to show an icon which the user has not selected'. The main objections to the forced default suggestion were:

- Loss of communication - many users use non-default icons to communicate information about a post or comment.
- Misrepresentation of communication - if a user has made a comment/post using a non-default icon to convey information, their message may be interpreted entirely differently and their meaning misrepresented.
- Loss of control - some users were uncomfortable with the idea that other users would be able to alter their published content, by forcing non-default icons.

My Suggestion:
- To enable an option (on the 'Display' pane of Account Settings, for example) to view all icons as default, regardless of which icon has been selected,
- To provide some method, when the option is enabled, of showing that a user has selected a different icon to the one displayed (something like this: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a350/endemonidia/icon.jpg).
- Providing a link/button to 'reveal true icon' - to show the icon which the user has actually selected.

Issue addressed: Some users (like me) depend on icons for recognition, and in places where user names appear out of context (for example, in communities or in other people's journals) or in long comment threads the use of non-default icons can cause complete confusion as to who is speaking.

Reasoning: My reasoning is that it offers an option to stop people from changing their icons from comment to comment with an absolute minimum of user input (trying to avoid the options=confusion issue), and that it addresses the original problem raised by noracharles while taking into account the issues raised in the discussion of that post.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt - why are you flogging a dead horse?: Because several users have framed this in terms of accessibility, and if that's the case then we should make sure that all options have been exhausted before the idea is dismissed.

I also hope that this will find a compromise - even though a user's selected icon will not be shown, the viewer will be informed that part of the communication is missing, and with the third item can easily see what the intended icon is if they wish.

The third item ('reveal true icon') strikes me as the happiest compromise, however it also seems the most complicated to implement and the most expensive in terms of server load etc., as well as the fact that one could get the same result if by disabling the option and reloading the page. But even if it'd be deemed unworkable, I would very much like to see the first two items.

Poll #2126 Option to force default icon - Resubmission

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
15 (40.5%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (5.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
12 (32.4%)

(I have no opinion)
8 (21.6%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[noracharles]

That's a brilliant solution. Thank you very much for this.

[zvi]

I'm still really uncomfortable with replacing the icon that someone has chosen with a different icon, even if it's their default, even if you can go look at the icon they chose. Would providing people with styles that just didn't display icons make the confusion go away?

[nacbrie]

Short answer: sadly, no.

Longer answer: My own experience is that when icons are not enabled (for example, on the latest page) I just won't recognise users at all. Recognition by user names (for me) usually only happens when the name is mentioned in a sentence.

A quick example: I recently came across a comment of yours on an LJ fandom/fic entry, and recognised that it was you from your icon. I could have read five comments from zvi_likes_tv and perhaps not realised that it was the person I associate with 'cartoon girl beside tv icon on dw_suggestions'. I might only recognise a comment from 'zvi' without an icon because of its unusual brevity.

[I Am Not A Neuroscientist, but I think the problem lies with the difference between image recognition and text recognition, or in trained comment-heading blindness, or both. (Comment-heading blindness: since 95% of the time the comment header will have no useful information, as comment titles are rarely used and the user name is unlikely to be recognised, users like me are trained not to look at the comment header/user name at all. I'm basing this on 'banner blindness', where internet users will ignore otherwise useful information if it looks like an ad because they've trained themselves not to look at ads, and anecdotally that I often won't 'see' comment titles unless there is a collapsed reply). But also, (a) the icon is a 100 x 100 pixel coloured picture while the username is 20 x 50-ish pixel monochrome text, (b) the icon is to the left, which means that I'll see it before I see the user name, (c) half the time I won't read the user name (as above), but if I do, it very rarely goes in.]

I completely understand that people want to have control over their published content, and that icons are a part of the content; I had just hoped that maybe this would be a compromise between those people and those of us with twisty brains. If not, it sucks, but it's not the end of the world by any stretch.

[rho]

I don't think of it as replacing. I think of it as just not showing the user-selected icon at all, and then having something else as a visual aid for recognition. There are two entirely different uses here which have become conflated in a single feature.

[zvi]

Yes, but this solution feels very much like the service imposing the ID usage of an icon on users who have clearly indicated by their use of the service that on this entry or this post, they have picked the communication usage of their icon, instead of the ID.

[rho]

How is that better than enforcing the communication usage of icons on people who are viewing them and want to use the ID usage? The general stance that Dreamwidth has taken is that the poster has control over what they post and the viewer has control over what they view. I see this as an extension of that.

[zvi]

People post to Dreamwidth in Spanish or German or Dutch. This is an English language service and the vast majority of our users are primarily English readers. But we don't translate the text of those posting in languages other than English, even though that would demonstrably increase the communication with those who don't read Spanish or German or Dutch.

The practice at DW has been to change how the entries or comments were displayed to conform to the viewers' wishes, but this would be the first time we changed part of the entry/comment itself, without the input of the person making the entry.

[denise]

I think your position here depends on whether you consider the icon choice part of the entry/comment or consider it metadata/separate display.

Personally, I consider it separate display, with little to no semantic information except in special cases, but obviously people disagree. Still, there are people for whom maintaining consistent icon->user associations is important, probably just as many as there are for whom maintaining icon->entry or icon->comment associations are important, and I'd like to arrive at some sort of plan that will accomodate both use cases.

[rho]

I don't see this as changing the entry itself so much as changing how the metadata associated with the entry is used, and we already do that. For instance, we let people hide current mood and music if they don't want to see them, and we let people automatically expand cuts on their reading page if they don't want to have to click through.

[sorchasilver]

I do feel there's a significant difference between opting not to see part of the content of a post and actually CHANGING part of the content, though. And to me, all of the metadata IS part of the content of my post. I'd be OK with an "opt not to see icons on posts" option, but not a "force default icon" option. But that doesn't seem to be wanted.

[ratcreature]

Yes, I'm really uncomfortable with this as well. I guess if this was implemented I'd choose not to have a default icon anymore, so then people would see the right one or none.

[jaaaarne]

Luckily, I don't have this particular problem myself, but I personally am convinced that if that's at all possible it should be implemented. Probably, it can be made a paid feature? Letting users have icons replaced with defaults doesn't seem like that big a sacrifice to me. After all, I've been doing the similar kind of altering to the DW website interface with userContent stylesheet in Opera myself. :) You see, underlined links in user profiles make interest lists, subscriptions lists etc. completely unreadable, especially on small widescreens (read: netbooks).

[triadruid]

This seems reasonable to me; hence, "With changes."

I'm not quite understanding the argument about it being a violation of the person's rights to push their default icon into place. Lots of places on the site use a different icon than what you're currently 'most into'...

[jaaaarne]

Yes, you're right. Say, there has always been a setting that allowed you to see the community's default icon instead of poster's icon when reading community posts on your reading page/friends page. I haven't seen anyone complain about yet. This current case shouldn't be that different, in my opinion.

ETA: And well, I cannot actually find this setting. :) But I remember there was. I remember seeing community icons instead of individual poster'. Probably it was on LJ? Hmm.

[denise]

It does exist, we just haven't put it back yet. (It's in a crazy place on LJ, and when we redid that place we accidentally left it out.) We have a bug open for adding it back in. *g*

[kyrielle]

This.

I don't actually want to use this option, but I voted for it, because I like to use different icons to convey additional info and want my friends who NEED an identifying icon (and I have one on LJ who does, and muddles through with those of us who do 'topical' icons) to be able to get them WITHOUT my having to either abandon that person to their confusion, or give up my topical icons.

[sorchasilver]

I am not at all comfortable with the idea of my default icon being used as a way of "identifying" me. I don't choose my icons to represent ME, I choose them to represent things I want to communicate. I don't want to be associated with a specific icon in that way.

How would the system handle it if people opted to not have a default icon? Would it just display the DW placeholder that shows up? And would that be acceptable to users who want this option? Because I think that's what I'd want to do if this was introduced.

[triadruid]

I would expect that if you didn't have a default icon, it would either show the placeholder or no icon at all (I can't remember how DW handles this).

[nacbrie]

The thing is, the people who (I imagine) would enable this feature are already using the icon to identify you. It doesn't matter how much you want the icon only to be used as metadata and communication, and that you don't want be thought of as 'the user with the faded-polka-dot-slogan icon', the fact is that when you comment, a non-zero portion of the people reading think, "Oh, a new comment from 'faded-polka-dot-slogan icon' person", rather than "Oh, a new comment from sorchasilver".

I'm trying to say that this is not a new thing, it's trying to make things a bit easier for those of us whose brains work in this way (actually, it's an attempt at compromise between those people and users such as yourself, but anyway).

If the feature were introduced, I reckon people with it enabled (for this reason) would get more communication from different icon use than before. If the feature were enabled and you used an icon to convey a message, I'd see your default with a big honking sign on it saying YO, DIFFERENT ICON!!! and I'd be curious and click to see which icon you had used. Without the feature, there's an evens chance that I wouldn't realise you had made the comment at all.

[sorchasilver]

Except that I very rarely post on DW anyway, and don't use my default icon much when I do, so I can't imagine that that identification of me with my default icon is happening much at all. Precisely because of the behaviour on DW you are seeking to change. People won't/can't associate me with one icon consistently at present, because I use a different one all the time. And that's the way I like it.

All I'm saying is, I don't feel comfortable with your proposal, and if DW implements it I want a way to opt-out of having a default icon used in this way. That's all.