I agree completely.

One thing though: I don’t believe *nix is poorly adopted. The free varieties and those meant for special applications probably are poorly adopted. However, OS X is a wildly successful UNIX 03 product.

1) Tropicana : I feel like the problem with their redesign isn’t the fact that they changed it, but rather that it went from a distinctive design to a boring “private label” design where it would be indistinguishable from the cheap orange juice on the bottom shelf.

2) Don’t overestimate the size of a very vocal minority. Someone is always going to complain and in the nerd world we tend to stand on the highest blog and scream our displeasure.

3) For those complainers out there lets remember that we are trying to recruit more people to the FF cause. If a better icon helps adoption of our precious browser then I’m all for it.

4) To those who say design is superficial I couldn’t disagree more. Software can have all the features in the world but if they are hard to use or find then they are missing their potential (see: *nix & photoshop). Even an icon affects UI. Is it easy to spot? Does it translate to browser or “Internet”? Is it distinct?

5) Finally to those who resist all changes I would point out products need to update their design in conjunction with their features. There needs to be a visual representation of new vs. old. A little eye candy as a first impression helps indicate that people are indeed working on and improving the product.

Lets keep in mind that Firefox is meant for broad adoption. The last thing we need is for it to live it’s life as an incredibly powerful but poorly adopted product (see *nix again).

You missed addressing the false dichotomy here. The implicit argument in that statement is that “meh” is a weaker upside than “hate”, and so there’s no compelling reason to change. But that ignores that fact that people’s (subconcious?) impressions are relative to the rest of the playing field. And it ignores other impressions, for example the that it’s not new, interesting, or fast because the style is slightly stale and dated. Not to mention that there may be people who *do* really like the new icon better. Maybe more people will really, really like it than will really, really hate it.

Funny, isn’t being frozen in time logo-wise the exact strategy of Pepsi’s opponent in the extremely competitive cola marketplace?

Interesting point, I’m honestly still looking for more information about the specific importance of keeping a brand stable versus updating it. (Although since we are keeping the Firefox’s iconic form and color, one could argue we are keeping it stable). And while analogies to orange juice and cola are interesting, I’m suddenly being reminded of a famous Steve Jobs quote: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?” Point being the technology industry is indeed a whole different environment.

Perhaps to you. I take them into account when I’m deciding, say, who to date. But when it comes to what tool to use, I use the one that works best for me and the job at hand, and what it looks like doesn’t matter one bit.

Appearances are superficial. Content is everything. And the fact that most people believe the opposite is one of the reasons the world sucks so badly, because people prefer style over substance.

Appearances matter a lot. Like, a lot a lot. The icon and UI of Firefox are a user’s very first interaction with the software.

“How well a tool performs for a given task” is completely wrapped up in how it appears. The article “In Defense of Eye Candy” at A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy) mentions a study that demonstrated that users “encountered fewer difficulties” with a pretty ATM than with an ugly one. As the article says: “The attractive machine actually worked better.”

You might not care about graphic design or aesthetics. Its effects may be subtle and go unnoticed by you and millions of others, but it’s absolutely critical to the success of a thing.

Funny, isn’t being frozen in time logo-wise the exact strategy of Pepsi’s opponent in the extremely competitive cola marketplace?