There is discussion going on in GNOME for Empathy on where a great place to put the protocol icons would be. With some new enhancements that are on their way into Empathy, there will also be a cell phone icon signifying those contacts that are mobile.
Currently the contact entries look like this:
Notice that the protocol icons are in the status icon.
Now since there is the soon-to-be addition to Empathy for mobile statuses, there is going to be a cell phone icon to notify you of this case. The issue that is going on in Empathy is one about where this cell phone is to be placed in the contact entry. Look at the following empathy-dev mockup:
Without having to read through the bug, the gist of the issue is that the icons on the right are really for user interaction (i.e. the camera can be clicked on to start a voice chat with someone), and the phone should go somewhere else.
I have since then submitted a mockup of my idea for a placement of the protocol and phone icons as follows:
Now, where do you come into this picture? I would like to get users submissions as to new mockups for contact list entries. I'm not just talking about the protocol and phone icon placement, I'm talking about a complete redesign of the contact entry.
There has to be the following items in the contact entry:
a)contact name
b)contact icon
c)status icon
d)protocol icon
e)phone icon
f)webcam icon
g)status message
Please submit them to me in an e-mail to bcurtiswx@ubuntu.com, but don't attach any mockups you make, please upload them to an online source and send the link in the e-mail. You can also post your mockup links in the comments section of this blog for others to look at.
Happy Ubuntuing!
