I need a little help here. I'm creating a site with a photo search like Getty or Corbis. The client wants a series of buttons for each photo denoting functionality. Here's the list: -add to favorites -Quick Quote (emails artist) -Add to Quote (like add to cart) -Compare photos (click to add to comparison list)
This feature is all about the photos, and my experimentation suggests that picture icons fight with the images and defocus the page. I want a series of four symbols, all characters in equal sized, slightly spread out gray boxes: ! Q $ C These are all memorable and will have rollover descriptors. They want to replace these with your typical line-art icons. This creates three problems. If they are too similar, they will become useless; if they're too different then they fight with each other. Second, picking coherent icons to represent these four ideas at about 12x12 will be tough. The biggest problem is that I believe they will fight with the images for attention because of their inherent dissimilarity and complexity. To make matters worse, they want to add more icons! -Print (brings up the image detail page & activates print dialogue) -Email (brings up the image detail page & activates "email to friend" feature) I need proof that A) symbols are as effective as icons in limited areas like this, and B) that icons can actually distract from the content. I'm dealing with serious inertia problems. If I let the picture icons go into production then they'll never change them, and they don't have the budget or inclination to do real A-B testing. Can anyone suggest anything? PS, I'm willing to be proven wrong. Den ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
