[WEB4LIB] Re: Library Websites that use

[Ryan Eby]

Well you could associate a style with your feed so that browsers will
display something nicer. Not all browsers will support it though most
newer ones will. An example is here: http://www.mezzoblue.com/rss/2.0/

The problem of getting garbage will happen to those who don't
understand RSS no matter what way you advertise it. As for the matter
of icon use, there is a lot of conflicting views out there. I
personally like it when people include a pdf icon to the end of links
that go to a pdf file. I suppose a (pdf) like google uses would be
just as useful. Right now you just have to judge what your users are
going to be familiar with. Are they going to know what that printer
icon means? Probably more than the message icon. Most people who use a
computer are aware of what an error looks like (from dialogs) and
using a warning symbol to highlight the problem area may be helpful.
This is more of an addition to using color as using color alone is an
accessibility issue.

Here's an example of something that uses both the icon and the text
after it. The text alone would probably be sufficient but having the
icon can really speed up the scanning process (for me at least):
http://www.basecamphq.com/tour-messages.php

On a related note, the AIGA symbols are available free on the web for
download in decent quality. These include things like the information
symbol and first aid station, etc. Some may be useful for those doing
projects or signs:

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentAlias=symbolsigns

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:40:22 -0800 (PST), K.G. Schneider
<kgs at bluehighways.com> wrote:
> > Another use of icons that helps are those orange rss icons. When I
> > look at a site and wonder if they have RSS feeds I often scan for that
> > icon. If I don't see it I might glance for text about syndication but
> 
> This is an example of an icon that is only useful for experts. I look for it
> myself, but I agree with others who say this icon is badly named, whether it
> is called RSS or even worse, XML (we use the latter on our site but plan to
> change it). (Well, RSS has a whole naming issue, a story for another day.)
> If you don't know that the orange icon means "here lies an RSS feed," it is
> meaningless, and if you click on it, you see puzzling code. It's not unlike
> naming all links on a page "HTML." And yet if you rename the link to a text
> link called "syndication," people looking for the orange icon miss it.
> 
> I'm glad the questions about icons and testing came up, and particularly the
> comment about huge mysterious icons in catalogs, and also the distinction
> between big graphics and actual icons.
> 
> Not sure what testing would reveal about the little print/mail icons, but I
> see NY Times and Epicurious offer the icons AND write out Email/Print.
> 
> I dimly recall reading, almost a decade ago, that one issue with icons is
> forcing the user to translate from the picture to what it means--not unlike
> when libraries use all kinds of colored dots on books which require patrons
> to refer back to lists to translate what those dots mean.
> 
> Karen G. Schneider
> kgs at bluehighways.com
> 
>