Making changes just for change's sake
Okay, now that I have your attention lol.
This is serious, but I am going to talk halfway between obnoxiously rude and jokingly funny :)
Seriously, you guys are young and maybe all but 3 of your customers are young people, but I have to deal with the 3 old people :)
It is really dumb and stupid to just change things around because someone got a hair up their . . . nose. (that is the obnoxious and rude part).
Changing the icon in the browser from a key to a key hole has caused me hours of problems on the phone with 3 elderly people I had buy the program. Seriously - was that necessary??? These guys (and lady) are in their 70's and 80's and would be easy targets for people to get into their accounts so 1Password is very relevant, and in y opinion, very important to them. If they lose their savings or money at this age it would be catastrophic for them.
You may not want them as customers, but too late, I signed them up.
They are used to repetition. The Diceware password was a BEAR to get them to adapt, but I did it. The key was there, nice and secure and very familiar. Now it isn't. This is to them a catastrophe. To me it is a headache.
Why???
Oh, I know the answer . . . so it looks like the key hole that is the icon of the program lol. Do I get the prize hehe.
But at that size in the corner of the browser, you can't tell squat - a keyhole, the letter I, a piece of dirt on the screen. And that is to me. i don't really care. But to "eye challenged" people the 1Password icon simply disappeared.
So what is my point? Before you make a visual change, see if it more for laughs and giggles or if it serves some kind of serious purpose. This did not serve a purpose, it made it hard to see, and makes it look like the key to their whole world is gone. It is simple and silly, but at the same time it is serious. There has to be something said for stability. That choice did not enhance the feeling of stability for some people, as few as they may be, that need to feel stable and safe after I read them the riot act as to why they need to use 1Paswword.
Okay, this was a rant. I doubt it will be received properly because until you experience how easy it is to shake up the world for an elderly person, I doubt it will be understood. hence, my attempt to make some noise on the subject. No harm meant, but it really caused problems for some people. Stability and consistency are key for a program that attempts to handle the security of someone's world, no matter how small they may be. I mean this to come on strong so it isn't taken in the sense of "oh, I don't like the new icon".
My 2 cents.
Peter
PS - I fully lend my voice to putting the key back. At least it can be seen and recognized. A spot of dirt on the corner of the screen isn't exactly the best symbol for all your eggs in one basket :) If the key was causing a problem, then something an older person can see would be better.
Comments
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Peter, thanks for letting us know your thoughts on the latest "refresh" of the 1Password logo. Please know that we received hundreds of messages of concern, a while back, when the logo in the extension didn't match the logo of the main program.
The change is roughly comparable to the way car companies change the styling from one model year to the next: It's still a Camry, for example; it's still as dependable as last year's Camry and probably improved in many ways; it just looks a little different. Microsoft changes the Windows logo with every major revision; it's still Windows. This is just what companies do, from time to time.
We apologize for any confusion that resulted from the change.
(Side note: Based on your assumption above, I think you'd be surprised to know our ages. :) )
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lol - I knew you would be the one to answer :)
So, coming from a constructive point of view, why not change the larger logo on the icon to a key rather than change the tiny icon on the browser to something not recognizable.
I don't see any good argument to the path that was followed - actually, there is one superb come-back for this, but you don't have it :) You made a recognizable icon into something that is little more than a mark inside a circle not really "seeable" at that size.
The reality is also, for me and in my experience, 100 percent of the people I have introduced 1Password too thought 1Passord was broken. That is 3 phone calls in 24 hours, and one of them thinking all his money was gone in a frantic phone call at 1AM in the morning. Thanks guys lol.
I have been able to explain to all 3 elderly folks I help in dealings with their computer the change made. My explanation has nothing to do with what you did, but they have eagerly accepted the change based on my explanation. But from a marketing point of view, you took a recognizable icon and turned it onto an unrecognizable one. And frankly, outside of my explanation I see no advantage to what you did. You can't see the darn thing lol.
Peter
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Thanks for the follow-up, Peter!
If you care to share the "superb comeback," I'll try to work it into one of our future exchanges. ;)
(Any of a number of people could've answered. I just happen to have the least "regular" hours.)
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Oh, glad you asked lol - you make me chuckle.
Here's the explanation that worked quite well . . .
1Password changed the icon to make your data more secure. It no longer attracts attention for anyone to "see what that key up in the corner does". Now it is more plain Jane and less likely to attract anybody's attention making your data even safer than before.
Explanation works, the people are happy, and even like it now, fish taking to water thingy :)
Just for the record - it's still a blob of dirt in the corner of my screen lol. And I think if anyone there thinks it is something slicker than that - I would say the emperor has no cloths hehe. It is just to small to work with any branding motives. But my explanation sells better and sounds like the Secret Service is on the job protecting your data (cough cough). Kind of goes with the theme of security mindedness.
Peter
PS I applaud your restraint :) If I was a betting man, I would have lost a bet here.
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I have to say, that explanation makes me uncomfortable, but I'm glad it worked for you.
I hope you'll understand my not responding to your comments about soiled screens and naked despots except, of course, to thank you again for sharing your thoughts.
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@Peter_Pappas are these elderly people really so out of touch that they can not understand the concept of corporate branding? I'm pretty sure that companies have been updating their branding for many many decades. Granted, the internet age has sped up the process, but the concept is very old.
That said, @DBrown, I happen to agree with Peter on the value of the two icons. I think that the old Key icon was much more recognisable than the current Lock. If you'd used the app's colour logo then it would have been a lot more obvious, but I understand that the world seems to be going to flat monochrome these days.
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@DBrown (sorry, don't know your name) does the explanation that something a person can recognize on their screen was changed into something less likely to attract attention and be a bit more toned down for security sake really make you feel uncomfortable? I am a bit surprise, but okay. I can't see the reason a generic looking symbol would make anyone uncomfortable. I am curious why you actually feel uncomfortable about that? It sounds involved and caring to be even more protective of one's portal to their data.
Hi Richard :) No, these people are not unaware of branding lol. The hammer came down when their method of accessing their data seemed gone. I tried the branding approach, and it didn't fly all that well and I got disgruntled unintelligible feedback. When I told them "it would keep johnny from trying to figure out what that key was in the corner of their screen" it was received a lot smoother and the smiles were back.
General: I am not trying to make this a young against old topic. What I am saying is the approach of the idea that "we are going to use our logo even if it is too small to recognize it at all" approach may not be the best thought on the planet either. It is hard to reduce anything at all to such a small size and have it still be recognizable. People on the fringe of being able to see all that well, it just takes them over the line.
But - you DID have something that already worked well in terms of visibility. Now you don't. Could it be considered a step in the right direction? I am thinking it could have been done better, how, I am not sure, maybe totally solid with the keyhole being the white part. On the 4 screens I have seen the new icon on, it isn't recognizable as being the "branded" part of the 1Password scheme.
For a company to make a decision like that, I have to wonder a few things. Was this decided at a meeting or by one person What resolution are the screens running at? Was it looked at on a variety of resolutions first? Maybe on your computer screens it shows up different than to mine. I am running a high end photography calibrated monitor (I am a photographer) at 2.5K. One of the people sees so poorly I have him on a 1080p 32 inch TV monitor and he watches TV and does his computing (Ameritrade, news, ect) on it. Another is on a laptop sitting on their desk. The laptop doesn't move to go anywhere, but that is their screen because their kids think that is what they should have. The other person is on a 17 inch monitor. Almost all of them are running at either 1080 or 720. I am the only one running at the native screen resolution of 2560.
Regardless, if the point is truly branding, the icon cannot be recognized as the 1Passowrd key hole on any of the computers by the folks that own them, or by me. On my screen in FireFox it too is not a branding attempt at first view. Only after I looked and scratched my head and tried to see the motive did I see the tiny line has a nook in it.
Actually, counter to DBrown being uncomfortable with my explanation, a few days into this, I am liking the fact that the curiosity factor has been toned down. So i am not longer thinking it should be changed. I leave my computer for maybe a half an hour at a time, and because it is in my home office i don't lock it down. The Key icon is more like a magnet, your eyes go straight for it. This new one blends away, and I really think I like that a lot better.
I like it now :) Thumbs up.
Peter
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Oh, and I had to look up what a despot was lol.
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@DBrown (sorry, don't know your name) does the explanation that something a person can recognize on their screen was changed into something less likely to attract attention and be a bit more toned down for security sake really make you feel uncomfortable?
It's Dan....oh wait, no it's not. :stuck_out_tongue:
;)I am curious why you actually feel uncomfortable about that?
I would guess that it's to do with the reality that far too many people think that obscurity is security and it's something that security professionals spend a lot of time trying to train out of people. Your explanation encourages that attitude.
The hammer came down when their method of accessing their data seemed gone. I tried the branding approach, and it didn't fly all that well and I got disgruntled unintelligible feedback.
Then it is not a lack of understanding of branding but a lack of understanding of what it is that their doing with the computer. To me, the solution is further training. Believe me when I say that I don't have any delusions of that being easy. My Dad is pushing 80 and struggles with many computer related concepts so I really do understand the difficulty here. However, software changes are inevitable; expecting the operating environment to remain static for the rest of their lives is just going to result in you having to have the same conversation over and over again.
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Lol, then you know what I have to deal with. My dad is 87, my uncle is 91, the other is 82 (ladies don't like their age reported lol).
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The keyhole icon (which I find indistinguishable from the IEC 5010 Power On/Off glyph) was flagged as a problem very early on in the Mac beta forum, to absolutely no avail. It has been suggested that the Key icon be made an option that the user could select in Preferences, but the most we get back is "thanks for the suggestion."
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In fairness, @benfdc, we've said a lot more than that in this thread alone, and I imagine the thread in the 1Password for Mac forum is similarly long.
I can't say the logo and matching icons won't change again, at some point, because that's what companies do, from time to time, but I'm not aware of any resources devoted to changing them at this time.
Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts on this issue.
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