New Icon for 1Password?

XopherH

I love 1Password. It's been an indispensable part of my workflow for over 5 years now. I love ALMOST everything you're doing. The one thing is, I'd really like you guys to rethink your icon. At least the one that appears in the Firefox toolbar. Please? As it is, it's 1) Almost invisible and 2) Visually counterintuitive.

Starting from the second point: The circle with a keyhole makes sense when it's in color and large enough to show detail. When it's shrunk down to icon size, it becomes perplexing. It's a circle with a squiggle inside it. Image-wise, it doesn't say "password," "security," or "lock" on first glance until you've parsed that out for yourself. The icon that shows up on my status bar (a key) does that much better.

Then there's the invisible part. It pretty much blends in with my (Firefox) theme, whereas all the other ones -- Twitter, Ghostery, Hootsuite, Feedly, Evernote, and the rest, stand out nicely because they have multiple, high-contrast colors with easily-identifiable images. Here's what the icons in my Firefox bar look like:

Note how your icon -- perhaps the most important of the lot -- gets lost.

It's a small thing, but it would help the ergonomics immensely.

littlebobbytables

Hi @XopherH,

When we redesigned our icon we tried to create a look that was universal over the browsers and in line with Yosemite's guidelines. In Safari all of the extensions I tend to use are monochromatic as are the majority of my menu bar icons. I don't see us changing to a icon with colours I'm afraid but I will ask why the Firefox icon seems to be more grey than the Safari one. It might be a retina thing as it seems darker on my old MacBook Pro. Is yours a retina machine at all?

XopherH

If only it were a retina. I'm using a late 2008 Macbook.

Alex White

I'm afraid I have to agree with XopherH - the change to the current icon is really horrible. Your previous version used a little key icon on the browser and in the Mac status bar, and that was excellent. It was clear, immediately visible, incredibly easy to intuit ("I need a key to get in to this site... ah yes, I'll click the key icon"). I've got a retina macbook and I'm still aways having to hunt for the blessed thing.

I can see no reason why the Yosemite guidelines should predicate moving from a clear little key to an apparently abstract icon that looks a little like a bee's waggle dance. Nor is there any reason why the toolbar icon should be a microscopic version of the normal app icon - a quick peruse of the Yosemite guidelines doesn't appear to give any reason for (and in fact talks about making icons distinctive between iOS and MacOS for instance - recognising that different environments benefit from having different icons).

I'd certainly cast my vote towards a reconsideration of the icon, if you have any place where use suggestions are accepted. Please return to the visual usability you used to have!

Thanks

schwaggy

I probably commented in a previous thread but I'll jump on this again. The current icon is not good. Hard to discern quickly what it's for and it blends in making it look like many others. I'm referring to the browser icon, and the main OS menu bar icon. Yosemite guidelines be damned! Please revisit the icon!

littlebobbytables

When I mentioned Yosemite guidelines it was only meant in reference to the monochromatic look of the icon in contrast to more colourful ones sometimes seen in Firefox extensions. I don't mean to single out Firefox, just that's one of the places I know you can sometimes see it.

There were a few public discussions here in forums at the time of the change. On this subject though it was deliberated but decided we were remaining with the current icon.

Now I don't know if we can adapt the shade of the icon to react to different Firefox themes or not but I suspect that would be a separate matter from the one that you @schwaggy and @Alex White are feeling passionately about.

XopherH

Frankly, it wouldn't need to be brightly colored to make it more visible; some light stroking of the shape or a drop shadow would probably help a lot. Look at the Hootsuite icon in my original post. It's monochromatic, but doesn't vanish like yours. That doesn't address the fact that the symbol itself is counterintuitive, but it's a step in the right direction.

rickfillion

Thanks for the input @XopherH, we'll take that under consideration.

Rick