Could it be made more obvious in Preview that an update will lead to something being deleted?

Development & Design Design proposals
1

I just recently uploaded my first batch of updates to Wikidata using OpenRefine. I needed to add a statement and delete two others from a set of items. After some fumbling about I figured out how deleting works and was off to the races. As an absolute beginner, nervous of messing up, I looked at the preview for confirmation that what I was about to do looked okay and immediatly had some thoughts:
image
Dark gray background means delete, right?

Long story short, there was a discussion on the OpenRefine-Wikimedia Telegram chat about how the user interface could perhaps be improved to better show which edits are in fact deletes (and which aren't).

Things that were mentioned:

  • Using an icon, like :x:or :wastebasket:
  • Using a color more commonly associated with deleting (like red)
  • Using strikethrough
  • Using colored ADD / DEL "pills", ala QuickStatements

image

  • Some combination of the above.
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Agree!

Pills with text would require translations and maybe not always quickly obvious in context and I think iconography with X and + are more universally understood. Looking at other applications, they seem to also use X and + but always with hovertext or labels next to them. I'd go for hovertext for those icons in OpenRefine which would also need translations.

We have other parts of the UI where "delete" or "trash" concept iconography is used with a close.png , such as the Project grid and other places here, where there the tiny X png allows you to delete a project. I think red and green are accessible colors in OpenRefine because we would always incorporate symbology along with use of color.
But those folks that might be colorblind would still see a X :heavy_multiplication_x: or for addition + :heavy_plus_sign:

So I'd vote for colored X and + iconography.

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