

Redesigning the hotel icon - cheeaun
http://blog.cleartrip.com/2012/02/09/design-nuances-redesigning-the-hotel-icon/

======
radley
You're better off with the park service icon.

The new design is unnaturally squared off at the foot and the spacing between
the sleeper's body and bed results in ambivalence and muddiness.

~~~
carb
I agree. I think their new design looks more like a tractor than a person in a
bed.

------
dan_b
It's a good thing they got rid of that chap's arm, or they would have got a
cease and desist from HostelWorld.com

[http://blog.keepmebooked.com/2011/09/what-happened-to-our-
ma...](http://blog.keepmebooked.com/2011/09/what-happened-to-our-mans-right-
arm.html)

------
estel
If we wanted to use it, is your new bed icon released under an open license?

~~~
hrush
We hadn't thought of releasing the icon, but we're quite happy to do that for
the community to use. We'll try and do that shortly.

------
MaxGabriel
This new icon is definitely much easier to see at lower resolutions, nice
work. Can you talk about the choice of using the bed icon versus a hotel-
building icon that e.g. Hipmunk uses? <http://www.hipmunk.com/hotels>

~~~
christiangenco
The hotel-building icon to me looks too ambiguous. Is this representing a
city? An apartment complex? An office building?

I think the bed icon clearly demonstrates what you use a hotel for - a place
to sleep. This encompasses hotels that aren't several stories tall as well.

~~~
petepete
We came to that conclusion too and originally had the silhouette of a bed
rather than the exterior or a hotel building[1]. Our client[2], however, had
different ideas.

And no, I have no idea why flight plus hotel equals desert island with palm
trees...

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/VJKiI.png>

[2] <http://www.onthebeach.co.uk>

~~~
Toucan
The island photo is pretty synonymous with package holiday in the UK, which
flight + hotel approximates in this case.

------
inspiredworlds
Its very hard to show a hotel as an icon, particularly as a building. We did
it by showing a building with signage of a bed (showing a similar design to
the cleartrip icon). People are used to seeing a bed and making the
association. So going with a simpler icon without the building also conveys
the same meaning as a hotel.

this blog post shows the subtly and intricate details required in good design
and UI.

------
Sniffnoy
Maybe worth noting that there isn't actually a "hotel" pictogram -- rather
it's the "hotel information" pictogram with the information part cut out.

------
scoot
Anyone else think the stairs down and escalator down icons need to flipped
horizontally (direction of travel left-to-right?). As it stand's there's
little to distinguish up and down, and it doesn't "read" naturally.

~~~
jrockway
Yes, I had exactly the same thought.

The corollary is that these icons are as bad as text; sure, they work great
for left-to-right reading Americans that designed them, but what about
everyone else? (My favorite is the "parking" icon. How does a big P help
someone who calls a parking lot a "駐車場"? The P icon looks like, "welp, nobody
that came to the meeting came up with a good idea, so let's just implement a
shitty idea instead." "Sounds good, Bob! Man we're dumb!")

------
jrockway
With all the backlash over Gmail's icons, why not just use text?

~~~
no_more_death
Because said backlash is a tempest in a teapot? Because the eye resolves
(clear) icons more easily than text?

------
jinushaun
It's still a bed, which is still hard to see from afar.

~~~
hrush
We hope that it's a clearer bed than what we originally started with.

With respect to seeing it from afar -- the contexts in which we are using the
icon is for desktop and post-PC device user interfaces. Interfaces which
aren't usually used from afar. Most users who are exposed to this icon will be
looking at it from just two to three feet away.

~~~
lalapu
All the other icons you are using are clear, but that one does not look like a
bed.

------
jpswade
Seems more like a re-render than a re-design...

------
nerd_in_rage
Just use text.

~~~
hrush
@nerd_in_rage -- we originally started with purely text as an approach. You
can see one of our older blog posts here where we talk about the simplicity
and clarity afforded by "Just use text":
[http://blog.cleartrip.com/2007/03/10/a-picture-says-a-
thousa...](http://blog.cleartrip.com/2007/03/10/a-picture-says-a-thousand-
words/)

Over time, however, we changed our minds a little bit. And we were driven, in
no small part, by the rapid shift to web consumption on post-PC devices. We
explained our thinking in another blog post:

[http://blog.cleartrip.com/2011/01/20/testing-an-all-new-
navi...](http://blog.cleartrip.com/2011/01/20/testing-an-all-new-navigation-
design-in-small-world/)

------
pyrotechnick
The redesigned icon has the added benefit of subconsciously conjuring thoughts
of the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza>

