The six different forms of sharing were: public (available to all), private (available to no one), shared with your friends, shared with your extended network (friends of friends) shared with groups (classmates, co-workers, etc.) and shared with specific people of your choosing. In addition, each form of sharing could have special attributes (such as the shared content can be available to advertisers) or combinations of various attributes. Additionally, these icons should take up a small profile to avoid being burdensome to the interface it resides in. Accommodating all of these issues proved difficult.

The first step was to concede that an icon-only solution was a fool’s errand. There was simply too much information to communicate with symbols alone. It became clear that the icons could not just be icons. Instead, they would look more like ESRB ratings. While no one will espouse the beauty of the ESRB rating system, few complain about the clarity. The difference is, the ESRB icons devote a considerable amount of space on information that is not about the rating.

There were three main challenges in designing the icons. The first was how to create a system to communicate the concept of “you” in relation to others. That was far more difficult than it initially seemed. Second was how to present the idea of networks (friends, non-friends and groups). The last main challenge was how differentiate something that is explicitly blocked from people to view as opposed to simply not sharing it with certain people. I am still unsure how clear these ideas can be articulated with symbols, but I think these icons head in the right direction. The subject (or “you”) is always larger than any other element in the icon. The subject’s friends are in full view (hence fully opaque) as opposed to people outside the subject’s network. When content is not shared with an individual, they are grayed out. When content is unavailable to specific people, a line (or wall) blocks their access.

Icons for this purpose should to be small, yet clear since they play a fairly minor role an interface. Anyone that has read about my process of designing Iconic and Cue knows that legibility plays a large role in how I design icons. Therefore these icons are designed for a maximum scale of 240×200 pixels and a minimum scale of 120×100 pixels.

I am at the point in the design where it would be useful to share with the community at large to get feedback. I’m uncertain if it’s worthwhile to go through a visual design pass—I would really like to hear people’s thoughts on that.If you have any thoughts on the issue of love to see you add them to comments below. I will be making the final icons available by PDF to download and use however you so desire.

Update: The proposed design described below has been released as Cue.

One of the clearly understood problems associated with touch interfaces is people are often left guessing as to what gesture(s) can be performed throughout an app. There are common interaction guidelines to follow, but that can only take us so far. One of the obvious ways to help solve this issue is to articulate the interactions allowed through gestural icons.

These gesture icons act as roadsigns to an app for interaction way-finding. As expected, there has been a significant collection of gesture icon sets that have been made available to fill this need. The current crop of icons succeed in clarity, but they lack the iconic qualities necessary to act as a standard representation of gestures. My goal is to help create a foundational set of icons that are flexible, clear and distilled to a point where they could become a standard visual system to build from – ultimately to be used within apps for when explicit communication is needed.

Less than two weeks ago, I updated Iconic with 18 new icons. I have had some time on my hands as of late, so I was able to add another 22 icons to the collection. This update includes bars (for charts or mobile coverage), alternate documents, upload/download, cloud upload download, a pilcrow, microphone, award, aperture and a few others. Most notably, I finally was able to get a camera icon that was decent.

The set is now up to 177 icons. I will continue to create icons as it makes sense, but this recent addition took care of all the pressing additions on the list. Some icons that have been suggested just do not seem possible given the grid used for this set. That said, I continue to give them a shot from time to time. Depending on how the next few weeks treat me, the set may break into the 180′s soon enough.

Go download the updated set.

Privacy Icons is a project which helps to inform people how their personal data is being used online. via Co.Design

Monocolumn Icons by always with honor. The icons are masterfully illustrated with a surprising level of detail given their style. via ffffound

If you haven’t yet seen these abstract icon font sets, you may just want to take a look. For what it’s worth, I think they’re quite interesting.

After talking to Dan about this issue, I have nothing but respect for him. He’s a really solid guy and I’m glad we were able to work things out.

Thanks again Dan.