# Could title icons like locks be pushed to the side?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/could-title-icons-like-locks-be-pushed-to-the-side/32618>\
**Category:** UX\
**Created:** [2015年八月27日 21:23 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/could-title-icons-like-locks-be-pushed-to-the-side/32618 "2015-08-27T21:23:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)\
**Post date:** [2015年八月27日 21:23 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/could-title-icons-like-locks-be-pushed-to-the-side/32618/1 "2015-08-27T21:23:15Z")

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Just playing with an idea. What the topic title says isn’t technically what’s been changed, because what I’m actually doing is pushing all titles to the right. Here’s a simple before and after:

**Current:**

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/9/5/95109c8fd1ec15956ab6cf32259d767ffaa8e160.jpg) 

**My suggestion:**

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/3/b/3b2be454a9977289f141ec2e850423187bb9ba2d.jpg) 

There’s ample room for it on desktop, and I feel like it makes the topic list considerably less noisy when there’s more alignment. I know it’s been argued in the past that the misalignment helps emphasise the special status (e.g. _locked_), and it does, but my opinion is that it’s _too_ emphasised this way, and has a negative impact on the complete appearance of the topic list.

In the rare case of \>1 icon, like with a bookmarked or solved topic that’s also closed, then sure, misalign it.

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [2015年八月27日 21:28 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/could-title-icons-like-locks-be-pushed-to-the-side/32618/2 "2015-08-27T21:28:02Z")

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That column is used for the checkbox when selecting topics for a group action, though. Only visible to staff of course.

Personally I also think that makes them stand out a lot more, which isn’t really what you want for a close. Might be a decent argument for putting the new/unread indicator there, though, since you _do_ want those to stand out.

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**Author:** ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)\
**Post date:** [2015年八月27日 21:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/could-title-icons-like-locks-be-pushed-to-the-side/32618/3 "2015-08-27T21:53:28Z")

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> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> That column is used for the checkbox when selecting topics for a group action, though.

Didn’t think that would be a problem, since the checkbox appears to dynamically push the title row to the side to make space for itself.

Here’s another experiment though, banishing post status down to the tags position:

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/5/e/5e2562ae784bb13c4252a6b0e7e1c0106568161a.jpg) 

It sure gets lonely down there though…