What icon for advanced options? [closed]

Question

I am working on a public transit app for Android. Look at the screenshot - the button with a wrench icon opens advanced options. In advanced options you can set which transport mode to use (bus, tram, metro, ...) and things like that.

1) Do you have an idea for a more suitable icon (I was told that the current one looks like application settings)?

2) What about implementing advanced options differently?

3) Any other feedback about the screenshot?

Answer 1

If you want to keep it small, you could use an icon for the current selection and a drop down arrow to indicate there are more options (or an up arrow, given that location).

I have no good idea for an "any" icon, though. A common system here would be a ring interupted by miniscule dots indicating the different types, but that works only if you've seen it in large once.

Alternately or in addition, you could give refinement options in the results page.

Answer 2

First off, I'm with ThomPete. /product manager hat/ Are you sure you really NEED advanced settings? Not saying you shouldn't do it, but are you certain there is a need for more than you are currently showing? If there is a need to have the advanced view, then is there truly a need for the simple view, or can you take a subset of the advanced view options and the simple view and have a single view that accomplishes your goal? /product manager hat off/

However if you do have a need for two separate views, why use an icon at all? Showing the word removes any chance of misinterpretation with fairly minimal impact to spacing. I can think of two ways to accomplish this off the top of my head.

• If your "advanced" view simply adds options to the current view, the left mockup shows how you can use a simple button that toggles the display of those additional options. I would also hope the button would be different enough from the Find Journey button so that the user wouldn't click the wrong one by mistake.

• If the "advanced" view is truly a separate view of the search fields (where you're replacing what is on the page), then a toggle selector that indicates the current view state as shown in the right mockup should get the point across.

Answer 3

A gear/cog is often used for settings, but it might also suffer from the same problem as the spanner and be associated with the application settings rather than the search settings.

You don't say what other options they can select - but one alternative could be to have the most recently used option on the main screen with a button to select other ones. So if "mode of transport" was the last used it would have a car/train/bus icon and then perhaps an arrow to the others.

Apart from that it looks like a clean UI which is always a good thing.

Answer 4

Perhaps you are asking this question the wrong way.

It's unclear if you have both a normal settings and advanced settings. But if your advanced settings (the button you show) is where settings are then there is no need to change it.

If on the other hand you have both a normal setting and an advanced setting then you should probably think about what the advanced settings allow you to do rather than whether it's advanced settings.

Personally I wouldn't do advanced settings but simply settings since it's a mobile app.

Answer 5

As ChrisF mentioned, a gear is your other option than a wrench, but I think either would be fine. There isn't enough of a conceptual difference between options and settings that it should matter too much.

As for your UI, it looks good, but I have two suggestions.

• Make your buttons the same width in total as your inputs.
• Color the 'Find Journey' button so that it stands out a little more.

Answer 6

What about having a button with ellipsis (three dots) inside for the additional search options?

If the widget next to "Depart at" is on/off switcher, it should be bigger and have more spacing around it.