[HN Gopher] The Dilemma of Icons
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The Dilemma of Icons
Author : oiooioioo
Score : 16 points
Date : 2023-08-24 06:04 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fairpixelsco.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fairpixelsco.medium.com)
| timetraveller26 wrote:
| There is no dilemma, only good an bad icons. A good icon is self
| explanatory.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| > A good icon is self explanatory.
|
| So said the ancient Egyptian scribes, and yet they wrote a
| Rosetta Stone.
| deely3 wrote:
| Is there a good icon for "save" action, that will work even for
| people that never see floppy disk?
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| One could argue if that actually makes it a less effective
| icon.
|
| And it's not the only case where something similar happens:
|
| https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/90445/mail-icon-is-
| th...
| GuB-42 wrote:
| The dilemma is that as thing become more abstract, making a
| "self explanatory" icon requires prior knowledge of other
| abstract concepts from the user.
|
| For example the cloud "obviously" means something on the
| internet, something like online storage, and you can derive a
| lot of "self explanatory" icons from there. But what about
| those who don't understand it?
|
| Funnily enough, I once saw a cloud icon on a piece of software,
| I thing it was mapping software, I instantly though about
| something about the internet. It took me a bit of time to
| realize it was for the weather, I mean, actual clouds.
| Animats wrote:
| Icons are hard once you get past very ordinary operations. Here's
| someone powering up an electric locomotive. Large physical
| buttons with very specialized icons.[1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/IQKDtw0llNE?t=217
| WalterBright wrote:
| > From the early days when icons carried inherent meaning
|
| That was never true. The icon for "print" remains something you
| have to learn. Even the trash can icon had to be explained before
| it became "intuitive".
|
| My chrome browser has a row of icons across the top. Only the <-
| and -> icons are reasonably intuitive.
| sctb wrote:
| I might interpret "when icons carried inherent meaning" as
| something like, "when the physical office desk metaphor was the
| only game in town". I didn't get much out of the article, but I
| would agree that the trajectory of icon symbology is
| necessarily towards the more virtual and more subtle (if that's
| a point the author is making...).
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Even the trash can icon had to be explained before it became
| "intuitive".
|
| Legend has it that the original Mac trash can icon looked a lot
| like a traditional British mailbox.
|
| Non-hilarity ensued.
| somat wrote:
| On the one hand icons can be a great crutch when trying to use a
| program in a foreign language, on the other, humanity has spent
| thousands of years developing a rich system to convoy meaning
| that is thrown away when going to icons only. Sometimes it feels
| we are back to caveman level tech.
|
| My personal pet peeve are washing instruction icons. Yes it is a
| simple easy to learn consistent system. None of which helps me
| when I am at the machine trying to decide what the hell this
| squiggle is trying to tell me. If I were smarter I would tape a
| decode sheet to my machine.
|
| the koan is.
|
| A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe the
| picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
| with pictures.
| porridge_ wrote:
| The saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words." I've
| found the exchange rate to be more dynamic. Many ideas are
| better put with words. Others with images. What I take issue
| with is the idea that words and images are in competition. Each
| has its own use case. Contorting an image to do the job of a
| word demonstrates a lack of communicative ability, and vice-
| versa.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Interesting. I read this whole thing. And there wasn't one
| picture/example/icon in it. Just words. If ever there was a case
| for a "few pictures might have been worth a lot of words", this
| was it.
| swalling wrote:
| This is a solved problem. When using an icon that isn't
| universally understood on a given computing platform (desktop,
| web, or mobile OS) you have to use a text label. When it doubt,
| don't use an icon alone.
|
| https://www.nngroup.com/articles/icon-usability/
| gxqoz wrote:
| I've seen some apps recently move to only having icons and no
| text label. I think Paint in Windows 11 is an example. I really
| dislike this as for an app I'm not using every day it takes me
| extra time to decipher the icon. And on desktops where screens
| keep getting larger I have the extra real estate for the app to
| be clearer.
|
| This is connected to another UX trend I don't understand of
| dumbing down interfaces because too many options are "too
| distracting." Probably not the best forum to ask this but has
| anyone ever stopped using an app because they got distracted by
| the menu?
| Pannoniae wrote:
| Partial reply: I think getting distracted by the menu is a good
| thing. It really helps you get up to speed with a program. On
| programs like Total Commander, I know where most things are and
| I don't spend much time searching for them. On programs like
| Win11 Paint or even some games (Men of War 2 springs into my
| mind but others probably qualify too) I just become
| disorientated. Monochrome stylised white icons aren't really
| distinct from each other, I constantly get confused between
| which one is which. So I never actually "learn" the interface
| or get any faster at using it.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| I frequently disable text labels in order to reclaim screen
| space.
|
| Perhaps it takes a certain kind of person to decipher icons as
| easily as text. But of course, I don't know all of them
| already, and so frequently I just go on a journey of discovery
| by tapping random buttons to see what they do. I would say
| that's not an efficient way to learn a UI, but what else to do?
| Documentation sucks!
|
| Lastly, the real curse of icons is forcing support people to
| attempt to describe, in our native tongue, the appearance of a
| thing, rather than its plain name. It was deceptively easy to
| guide a newbie by saying "now click open, then save, now go
| home" but nobody is going to know what the "hamburger" or
| "floppy disk" or "share" icons look like, so the verbal mode of
| communication has been hampered significantly.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "hark back to early video players "
|
| I think he means audio players, but it's possible they's never
| seen one of the old audio tape machines...
| von_lohengramm wrote:
| I've recently had to learn Jira, and holy cow the iconography
| (and really whole UI/UX) is awful. I have to expand the left
| panel and waste a crap ton of real estate on an already way
| overcrowded page to get textual labels instead of icons
| consisting of variously arranged boxes. Horizontal boxes =
| backlog. Vertical boxes = active sprints. Stacked shrinking boxes
| = releases. Of course, they're all single-color outlines with
| little visual distinction between them all. Who thought of this?
| What would have been so awful with just words or even
| abbreviations? Heck, why does this even need to be in an almost
| completely empty sidebar instead of using the dead space in the
| top navbar?
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > Stacked shrinking boxes
|
| I think that one is meant to be a ship.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I learned the hard way, that iconic UI is probably not the best
| way to go.
|
| But designers pretty much insist on it, these days, and fun,
| ensues (and sometimes, FukN sues).
|
| I have found the best UI, is UI that gets out of the way, and
| doesn't call attention to itself. There's a reason that waitstaff
| usually wear black.
|
| An example: I designed this really clever Swift UI widget (not
| SwiftUI)[0].
|
| I keep trying to use it in my projects, and keep removing it,
| because it's too "in your face."
|
| [0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Spinner
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