Change the Green Online Icon to an Icon reflecting the IM Protocol?

[H. Bons]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:04:49 -0700 (PDT)
  Charliep <charliep at gmail.com> wrote:


> Your handicap may likely make you perfectly UNQUALIFIED 
>to espouse on this
> subject. There is no way for you to know how easy it is 
>for me to spot if an
> AOL contact I have because the bright orange color of 
>the icon compared with
> the other Yahoo and ICQ friends I have in a group. But 
>you have based on
> your handicap decided my request is NOT important.
> 

People with a handicap are the reason why there is such a 
thing as usability testing! The decision of not showing 
protocol icons was a decision of vision, not disability.


> The ONLY reason I was BLUNT in the past (for which I 
>have apologized) is
> because you are (being and have been) so ABSOLUTE! 
>Really I would love to
> help out within Pidgin from a UI perspective. This is 
>what I used to do for
> my day job, but what is the point? The resolution of 
>that bug submission was
> ... Its not a bug? PLENTY of people who were nice in the 
>past have
> complained and that didn't get you to WAKE UP AND 
>LISTEN.
> 

We listen well to grounded arguments. There are a lot of 
UI features that got in since 2.0.0 that are great. What 
makes it in and what doesn't make it independs on if it is 
in harmony with the Pidgin Philosophy (TM) found on 
developer.pidgin.im. Pidgin had a clear view on wat the 
client should be, not adding all kinds of random stuff.


> You have stated absolutely that there is no possible way 
>you will ever get
> rid of your non-descript icons or ever implement 
>skinning. Absolutely ruling
> something out is just ... maybe not the best way to 
>handle things.
> 

Protocol icons are less desciptive than Status Icons, and 
they are static information DOT

> Your decision to LOCK OUT people with talents that 
>differ from yours from
> Pidgin's development process is ... probably not the 
>best way to improve
> your product.

Show us your talent!
There are a lot of talented people working on Pidgin, the 
bar may be high.

> 
> The premise of developers deciding what is important to 
>users based on their
> limited analysis rather than using some kind of more 
>scientific analysis is
> ... probably not the most efficient way to come up with 
>the right decision.
> 

There is not a single correct scientific way to do a UI, 
if so there would only be ONE IM client, ONE web browser 
and ONE file manager around, this is not the case, pick 
the application that suits you (best).

> ---> Perhaps it might be a good idea to just implement a 
>version with both
> your non-descript icons and with IM Protocol Icons and 
>then offer the user
> the choice of what they want to implement during 
>installation and then
> include a way to poll the software to see which one is 
>more popular. We are
> talking about a small amount of code here, and yet you 
>have made an absolute
> decision NEVER to implement this. That is just ... 
>probably a decision
> process which could be considerably improved.
> 

You do that, it may be popular, and it's just a few lines 
of code, but don't decide what the Pidgin developers 
should do in THEIR free time.

> The premise of intentionally refusing to implement 
>functionality that could
> be VERY EASY to implement and would have no harm on 
>other users is ... not
> very friendly to your fan base out there.
> 

Like mentioned many times before, this doesn't bother any 
of the developers, stop throwing it at us.


>>From the looks of everything this has been a repetitive 
>>complaint from
> multiple users. For every 1 user that complains you 
>probably have 100 that
> are upset but don't want to waste their time complaining 
>to people who won't
> listen. Other people have been 'nice' but that didn't do 
>any good. I tried a
> more blunt approach and that did more harm than good, 
>but my intentions were
> nothing more than to help the process.
> 


> Oh! And another bug - a friend just tried to use MSN to 
>send me a link and
> the first 4-5 times he sent it to me the message didn't 
>come through! I
> would love and stay and try to help improve Pidgin and 
>the UI but it seems
> you don't want to listen and you have bigger things to 
>worry about!
> 

That is one of the most childish things I have ever heard.

Hylke