: What Icon Can Be Used to Represent "Attributes"? I am looking for a comprehensible icon/a visual metaphor to express "arbitrary attributes", in the sense of additional information. In my particular
I am looking for a comprehensible icon/a visual metaphor to express "arbitrary attributes", in the sense of additional information.
In my particular case, each record represents a word, or a name, but the question is generally applicable for other cases - the additional attributes I am referring to provide some arbitrary additional information on the record; maybe it could be called "meta-information". To give an impression of what attributes I am talking about, here are some examples of that additional information are:
Who created the record?
How often is the record used?
Is the record deprecated?
In which century did the word/name stored in the record first occur?
What other words (records) often appear in combination with this record?
etc.
So, to open the dialog box where the values of such attributes can be configured for a given record, I am looking for a commonly understood icon. My ideas so far, none of which I am completely happy with, are:
Tools
A set of tools is often used to convey "configuration", but that could be confused with the application-wide configuration that also exists in my program.
Luggage tag
A luggage tag could adequately convey the meaning of "attached information", but aside from said attributes, "markers" or "comments" can be attached to records, and I would like to use a luggage tag icon for those.
Information i
Such a symbol would express that we are dealing with information about the record, which is ok, but it also implies that it is read-only information, a mere information output, rather than a way to edit said information.
Is there any commonly understood visual way to express attribute values?
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Why don't you try a small "graph" style icon to represent attributes:
I feel that this icon can't be confused with something such as "tools" or "options"
Consider creating a prettier version of a scatterplot.
Scatterplot www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/r/faq/scatte1.gif
An icon representing generic control elements should work,
for example showing a two-part radio button.
Or, similar, a simplified equalizer control:
If a symbol of "control elements" causes confusion with a tools icon, representing just a list of items could solve that:
Images from awoken-icon-theme
An open or closed scroll (depending on how much detail you can include or how big the icon is) can represent "textual information", "archives", and "records".
Googled examples:
Adding a pencil would also introduce the 'edit' action.
I think what you are after, are some way of indicating "more, unspecific information".
As @Cakey points out, not everything in the world needs an icon, so maybe some indication of editing might work fine.
Luggage tags are usually used for tags as in identifying synonyms on additional information, mainly as a help for search and batch. Such as swiss (cheese) would have tags as cheese, milk product, europe, pasterurised etc
Tools are configuration, so not really applicable.
You might want to think about:
three dots … (indicating more information)
an i, possibly with a pencil
The text "(add) more"
Another way - this depends on how this is set up: imagine a bar with a tiny arrow on it. Best example I can think of right now, is the bar here at GD: the "pull-down" text box in the answer-field:
This could be vertical of course. It would show there is more (and what is behind this "more" could be editable).
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