Guild Wars 2

Set the stage

There are many ‘open-able’ items in guild wars 2 ranging from chests to random boxes or bags looted.

Provide details

There are extremely varied icons for all of these and it is hard to gain a visual clue for inventory management.

Balance between Logic and Emotion

There is a chance for usability improvement here in that their icons can provide more of a visual clue as to whether they are ‘openable’ containers.

Thus, on opening inventory and inventory management, you can easily identify what items can be opened.

Get to the root.

The core problem is that there is no visual coherency to container items. There is no visual similarity between any of them.

Suggestion 1 – Make the icon have a background which provides a color

For examples sakes – Aidan’s level 80 armor.
All 6 icons of the armor pieces in this set have a similar color scheme and similar background of purples,blues, and reds. All 6 pieces can be visually related to eachother.
Possibly do a similar thing. So for example the Black lion Chest has a yellow ‘aura’ around it, apply a similar yellow aura around all bags.

Suggestion 2 – Put a simple tag in the corner of a container icon

Apply a small visual clue in the bottom left corner of all container items.
For example a blue dot in the bottom left corner of everything from Black Lion Chest to a bag of loot dropped from a champion. The blue dot (or banner, or box, or triangle, or kitten shape) provides instant attention grabber when the bag has been opened.

Why would this work?

Either of the above suggestions (Suggestion 2 would require less development and art) would provide a visual clue and design coherency between items which require action from your inventory.

As a comparable example: A white, green, blue weapon all have very dull icons compared to a Rare. There is an instant visual indication as to the item’s quality and function ability.
Applying a similar level of recognition to container items would be really amazing. It could also be furthered to other consumable items.