DW user head image

[fu]

Someone over on dw_suggestions mentioned that the neutral blank userhead was just begging to have something stamped on it. That idea got stuck in my mind, and I just had to do something about it.

Presented for your voting pleasure, two subtly DW-ized versions of the userhead, which politely states which site you're on, but (hopefully) without sacrificing the original's neutrality:

Poll #9353 DW user heads

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 80

View Respondents

Which of these images would you prefer for the DW user head icons?

View Answers

- original
29 (36.2%)

- stamped with the DW swirl
14 (17.5%)

- stamped with the DW swirl, slightly darker
34 (42.5%)

None of these
3 (3.8%)

Comments

[samjohnsson]

...are the swirls going in opposite directions?

[fu]

Nope! Optical illusion at work, I think!

[exor674]

I am wondering, however, if this will be too close to the official journal icon for anyone ( I am thinking people with greyscale-only devices or various forms of color blindness { I think the exact form that would cause issues is hella rare, but expert I am not! } )

[fu]

I believe not, because of the differences in placement and overall shape. The staff icon is circular with a very prominent swirl, while the regular user head is more elongated and has a subtler swirl. Here are the staff and stamped icons side by side for comparison:

Light background:

Dark background:

(If you or anyone else reading this has trouble distinguishing between the two forms, please comment!)

[exor674]

Looks fairly distinct to me, still might want to wait to see if anyone helse has an opinion.

[fu]

*nods* Gotcha, thank you for bringing it up!

[kyrielle]

I think it is fairly distinct, but on the dark background the staff one is just hard to see as a swirl at all when it's rendered as above. On a background with about the same grey value as the swirl itself (which is slightly lighter than the black here), I can see it being extra-hard. It's not confusing with the other two, though, it just isn't clear what's going on there at all.

Clarity issues....

[kyrielle]

On the comment page, I love the darker swirl.

But on my reading page it looks much worse.

What's clearly a swirl here - on both - is less distinctive and more messy-looking against my darker, tan-shade background.

The original looks the same to me on both backgrounds.

I don't know how to navigate this issue, 'cause I really think the swirl is a better idea, but I think maybe it needs to be previewed against a variety of backgrounds to consider what might happen to it on people's journals. Or some kind of outline/boundary to help, but again, you'd need something that worked on most backgrounds.... Hmmm.

I can't quite decide how to vote, so I'm just commenting.

Re: Clarity issues....

[fu]

Oh hm, yeah I'll look at it with more backgrounds and see what I can find -- thank you for bringing that up!

[poulpette]

I voted for the second option mostly because the one with the darker swirl is, or seems to be, bigger. (The swirl that is, not the userhead.) The darker swirl might be easier to see though rather than the lighter one.

[zvi]

It just reads very indistinctly to me, both swirls. I feel like I would be peering at it and going "what the heck is that if I had not been told.

+1

[luciferous]

This; even knowing it's a swirl I still can't tell what's going on in the lighter one.

[ninetydegrees]

+1

[jewelfox]

If we're going to have a "person" icon with a swirly thing attached, the swirly thing should totally be its tail.

[pauamma]

The 2nd stamped userhead's swirl looks larger and thicker to me, but not obviously darker. Am I missing something?

[fu]

Nope! It's just the thickness of the swirl which makes it a bit more prominent (dubbed "darker", for short)

[pauamma]

Thanks. (I'm not convinced it should be replaced, but if it is, the darker> more prominent one looks better to me.)

[fyreharper]

+1

[aedifica]

I'm split between the original and the "stamped with the DW swirl, slightly darker" option.

[stormy]

Personally, I love all of them, but I could see the swirled ones being an admin icon as well (though they're not as easy to pick out as the red).