Conceptual RSS Icons for IE7

Ok so go check out the rss icon... entry on the RSSTeam blog if you haven't seen it.

First off, I'm a little suprised they are planning so many different states for the RSS icon. Most of the comments seem to think they are only choosing one which is what we are used today. Five or so, seem a bit much to me, but I can see having two: subscribe and unsubscribe. As about half of the comments mentioned they like #3 as do I. But I'd like to tweak it a bit. Drop the spark and make it a plus sign:

subscribe rss

And then change to a minus if you are already subscribed.

unsubscribe rss

Both icons seem to scale better than the spark as well:

subscribe rss miniunsubscribe rss mini

That's my vote.

posted on Oct 8th, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (9)

9 Comments »

  1. Good idea. What about the comment about RSS not being a broadcast?

    Comment by Aurélien - October 09, 2005 @ 2:44 AM

  2. Great idea to show subscribed state, though how would the site know? There'd have to be some interaction between the feedreader and the site, unless you only allowed logged-in users to subscribe. FWIW, I believe they aren't planning on five states--they were giving 5 possibilites for the one icon.

    Comment by Ingo Muschenetz - October 10, 2005 @ 7:06 AM

  3. Right-o, yes its not 5 states, just 5 concepts, my mistake. Internet Explorer would know whether you are subscribed by checking the Vista RSS Store. So its true this would only be applicable on the Vista OS and if you made use of the RSS Store.

    Comment by Adam Kinney - October 10, 2005 @ 8:34 PM

  4. I thought this was supposed to be an icon for IE's toolbar and nor for the websites...

    Comment by Skrypek - October 11, 2005 @ 3:49 PM

  5. At first I thought this was the perfect solution, but then I wondered - what about on a site with multiple RSS feeds - which button would you show then? What would the icon look like on a page like CNN's feeds page (http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/)?

    Comment by Tim Sneath - October 12, 2005 @ 8:08 AM

  6. <p>Well if there's more than one then it should bring up a floating panel where each feed is listed and has a smaller individual "+" or "-".</p> <p>And before you click the panel, if there are any feeds that could be subscribed to it a "+" should be shown.</p>

    Comment by Adam Kinney - October 13, 2005 @ 3:52 PM

  7. Alternatively, in the case of a list, where some are subscribed and some are not, the icon would show the plus and minus right next to each other and a slash between. "+/-"

    Comment by Adam Kinney - October 13, 2005 @ 4:13 PM

  8. The minus icon doesn't make sense.

    Comment by mark - November 01, 2005 @ 8:21 AM

  9. When i read about this at arcon5 (http://www.arcon5.com/modules.php?name=News

    Comment by Tony Luke - August 06, 2006 @ 6:22 PM

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