[HN Gopher] Icons in Menus Everywhere - Send Help
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Icons in Menus Everywhere - Send Help
Author : ArmageddonIt
Score : 50 points
Date : 2025-12-08 19:44 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.jim-nielsen.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.jim-nielsen.com)
| arcbyte wrote:
| This a really interesting and persuasive read for me. I've been
| thinking about this topic as part of brainstorming a simple
| design system and I had come to the conclusion that the
| inconsistency of not having icons for every menu item was a big
| annoyance. After seeing how descriptive the icons are in older
| menu examples compared to the abstract blobs in newer menus, I
| have to admit I might be wrong. At the very least, ensuring that
| the icons themselves are as illustrative as possible about the
| intended outcome of its selection is necessary.
|
| It also makes me think about the classic Save icon: the floppy
| disk. That was certainly descriptive at its origination, but is
| it still so? In the age of natively storing documents in the
| cloud or copying to a USB drive, it seems like we might want more
| than one save menu or an appropriate icon for where the file
| resides on the single Save menu item. Microsoft Office has the
| Autosave toggle switch that serves some of this purpose, but it
| could definitely be better.
|
| I also think about the Zune UI where sometimes a menu consisted
| only of the icons. How do you enable unique menu designs like
| Zune without icons for everything?
| dexwiz wrote:
| I always thought menus had icons so they could be matched to the
| same functionality on the toolbar. If a menu lacks an icon, then
| it's probably not on the toolbar. This falls apart when there is
| no toolbar. But I have definitely found an action in the menu,
| looked at the icon, and matched it to a a button elsewhere.
| IcyWindows wrote:
| I believe some programs used to let you even drag menu items to
| the toolbar.
| DeathRay2K wrote:
| I changed the UX in my mobile app from text only to icon + text
| by default in menus, buttons, and links.
|
| There are several reasons I made the switch, but the primary
| reason is that it makes it easier to build a kind of muscle
| memory for navigating and performing particular actions. In
| essence, the text is there for new users and the icons are there
| for experienced users.
| TrianguloY wrote:
| This.
|
| I like icons (and colors, but those are still mostly missing)
| to quickly find a frequent action. If the menu is always the
| same you can learn the position, but with dynamic entries it's
| way more difficult.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| Two extensions/patches I'd like to see for macOS:
|
| 1. Remove all icons from menus.
|
| 2. Make mouse-over do nothing - I should be able to move the
| mouse anywhere on the screen, and nothing should change
| colour/pop out etc.
| oidar wrote:
| I think the key in apples guidelines is the word arbitrary. A
| lot/ most of the icons in apples menus are purpose made for the
| menu item - so it's not as big of an issue.
| nvader wrote:
| I think this is an example of the emojification of communication.
| I suspect that trend is being sustained, at least, by LLMs who
| are prone to abusing vapid emojis everywhere.
|
| I think that to a certain superficial level of analysis, a
| matched set of icons looks "complete" and indeed impressive.
| Designers and implementers of the interface can fool themselves
| through customary use that they're creating a language of
| ideograms. Their users, who interact with their product only a
| few hours per week, only perceive visual noise and clutter.
| gedy wrote:
| I always took it as a plus for soft internationalization, e.g. we
| may not have translated or localized to the current user
| language, but icons area decent generic hint.
| etothet wrote:
| From the article: "What I find really interesting about this
| change on Apple's part is how it seemingly goes against their own
| previous human interface guidelines..."
|
| Welcome to Apple of the last decade. As an avid user of many
| Apple products, this has been extremely frustrating to
| experience. Hopefully Alan Dye's departure will see at least
| partial return to obeying Apple's own HIG.
| sixtyj wrote:
| Have you seen any specialized software, e.g. AutoCAD by Autodesk?
|
| In the top ribbon menu there are icons only. And not any familiar
| ones at all.
|
| Icons, text representations of the action behind the menu
| items...
|
| It's a designer hell in which you have no chance to please
| everyone. Like someone using a vim editor for 20 years... some
| people are using icons, other want text and the third group wants
| combination of both.
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