New Settings Icon is Not User-Friendly

[Veronica Davé]

Just wanted to put in my two cents about a small issue.

Literally just a couple weeks ago, my 60-something year-old mother called me wanting to know how to change her homepage in Chrome back to iGoogle. It had been changed automatically by AVG when she was updating her virus protection software (bad AVG! That's mean to those unfamiliar with this kind of trickery!)

Anyway, I walked her through the steps and afterwards, she said, "That makes so much sense! You just click on the wrench when you want to fix things!"

That wrench is now three horizontal lines. I'm not sure what that means, and I'm sure my mother, who /just/ learned how to access the Chrome settings, will not know what it means either.

It's always disappointing to see intuitive icon images change to obscure, meaningless pictures. It would be really great if we could bring back the wrench.

Thanks for reading :).

[Nico Weber]

Hi Veronica,

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Veronica Davé <dave.v...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just wanted to put in my two cents about a small issue.
>
> Literally just a couple weeks ago, my 60-something year-old mother called me
> wanting to know how to change her homepage in Chrome back to iGoogle. It had
> been changed automatically by AVG when she was updating her virus protection
> software (bad AVG! That's mean to those unfamiliar with this kind of
> trickery!)
>
> Anyway, I walked her through the steps and afterwards, she said, "That makes
> so much sense! You just click on the wrench when you want to fix things!"
>
> That wrench is now three horizontal lines. I'm not sure what that means

I believe it's supposed to look like a pop-up menu with menu entries.

I wasn't involved in the change, but I guess this was change to make
the icon more similar to the corresponding icon used in chrome/android
and chrome/ios.

Nico

>, and
> I'm sure my mother, who /just/ learned how to access the Chrome settings,
> will not know what it means either.
>
> It's always disappointing to see intuitive icon images change to obscure,
> meaningless pictures. It would be really great if we could bring back the
> wrench.
>
> Thanks for reading :).
>

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[Veronica Davé]

Thanks for the reply, Nico!

I did figure that it was changed in an attempt to unify everything across platforms. I do think unifying icons is potentially a good idea, mostly so that users can bring what they already know from desktop use to their mobile devices. Desktop Chrome has been around for longer than Android/iOS Chrome, and I really don't think people are becoming familiar with Chrome on their mobile devices and then wondering, "What the heck is this wrench icon? Where are the three lines?" I think it would have been better to bring the wrench to Android, because I don't think the three lines make much more sense in mobile Chrome than they do in desktop Chrome. Three lines really does not resemble a pop-up menu in any clear or straight-forward way.

Also, isn't there a bit of a fundamental flaw in making your icon resemble the appearance of the menu it opens? What about a new user who has never seen the settings menu before?

I don't mean to make a mountain out of a molehill, but it's important to keep the naive user in mind! Chrome has always been a very accessible browser and I'd like it to stay that way.

[Tibor]

Three lines look more like text alignment than settings.

I think settings button in Chrome for Android should look like a settings button in Android, not like the settings button in Chrome for Windows or Chrome OS. 

Users are more likely to be familiar with icons used in their operating system than with icons in a concrete software. 

I'm using Windows, I don't care and I don't want to know how icons look in Chrome OS or Mac OS.

I think Google are spending too much with look&feel. There are lots of missing/broken features what would be more useful for users than changing UI design every about 12 months.

It's not only with Chrome, but Gmail is redesigned almost every year too. I'd swap all redesigns for a working Send & Archive button. It's broken for more than a year by now :-|

[Jenni Winfrey]

How do I set Google Chrome back to the Google home page after downloading the new AVG software? I want the restore tabs option to come back as well as the recently closed tabs.  I have my settings set to "Continue where I left off."

[David Thomasson]

I TOTALLY Agree; the wrench makes instant sense.  It is iconic perfection and I would love to see Google and use the wrench as the settings icon in Android and Chrome. 

[David Thomasson]

Hotdogs > Settings > Appearance > "New tab page  Change" Click on 'Change' > select "Use the New Tab page" > OK

Wouldn't that sound SO much better if I could say "Wrench" instead of "Hotdogs" ?