Yuku free message boards

A few comments.

1. Icons should clearly identify the objects or concepts they represent. Their shape should be simple. Complex shapes can hide the meaning of the icon.
For example, HCI people agree that the pictures in the Dock of OSX are no longer icons, they are photographs.
Once their size underruns a sudden threshold, they are hard to identify and serve no purpose anymore that is linked to the term 'icon'.
3. An icon should be as unique in shape as possible. In particular regarding the topic being discussed here: if icons meaning different or opposite things are too similiar they serve no purpose over text or a button.

2. An icon should work even for color blind people (yes there are people doing 3d that are color blind, search on cgtalk if you doubt).
Regrading color: Any associations of color are local to certain culture areas. Red and purple are are no-nos. Red means 'stop' for us but in Asia purple (a very similiar color) means 'go'.
The same goes for green which means both life and death in Asia while we associate it with 'go' (this was a main reason people like Bruce Toganazzi criticezed the OSX window controls being colored like a western hemisphere traffic light).

If you take this stuff into consideration, the suggestions with the open lock that basically misses a part in the unlock is crap. It looks much too similiar to the locked version.
Color may be used but the icons should work w/o it. Hence, if you use a red lock, ensure it has a black outline still.

Another issue is best practice. In most other applications, in particular in the CG area, open and closed lock icons are used to represent this concept. Hence we should at all costs stick to this. Furthermore the unlock should be rotated 180 deg, as someone suggested for obvious reasons (to make the shape of the unlocked icons as different as possible from the shape of the locked icon w/o sacrifying the idea of the icon itslef).
Since the majority of people reads from left to right, it makes sense to pay more attention to the left side of the icon being different in shape that the right one, should you have to choose. Of course, would you create an application for the Asian market only, sides would have to be swapped.

From the aesthetical pov, both icons should be aligned horizontally with the lock. The unlock bail should go out to the left.

A better solution would be to display a lock for the locked state and nothing at all for the unlocked state. Of course the area where the state can be toggled should be marked somehow by a sunken border or the like.

The current solution is not good. The unlocked icon and the icon for toggling between solid/wire mode look basically the same.

.mm