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The best icon is a text label

thomasbyttebier.be

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Re: The best icon is a text label

#2

Post by maniacalrobot »

I'd agree that many Icons are context sensitive and many require the user to learn their use, but they do, mostly, provide a language agnostic approach to navigation. An icon is the same size in any language, whereas the title could be very different.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#3

Post by statoshi »

Indeed; I've noticed often while observing people of older generations that one of their big problems using apps today (especially mobile) is that they don't have the same understanding of iconography as younger generations. It's usually not intuitive for them.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#4

Post by rconti »

I always laugh when I see that "unclear laundry icons" image, because I recently had the experience of trying to use a combined washer/dryer machine in a foreign country. The icons truly are asinine, you can't even get close to guessing what you want.

For fun, I looked it up. Some of the icons are obvious, a few make sense once you know the basics, and still others seem almost sillier once explained.

http://www.textileaffairs.com/lguide.htm

Re: The best icon is a text label

#5

Post by dragonwriter »

maniacalrobot wrote: post #2

I'd agree that many Icons are context sensitive and many require the user to learn their use, but they do, mostly, provide a language agnostic approach to navigation. An icon is the same size in any language, whereas the title could be very different.

> I'd agree that many Icons are context sensitive and many require the user to learn their use, but they do, mostly, provide a language agnostic approach to navigation.

They are "language agnostic" in that an icon system is its own language.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#6

Post by function_seven »

rconti wrote: post #4

I always laugh when I see that "unclear laundry icons" image, because I recently had the experience of trying to use a combined washer/dryer machine in a foreign country. The icons truly are asinine, you can't even get close to guessing what you want. For fun, I looked it up. Some of the icons are obvious, a few make sense once you know the basics , and still others seem almost sillier once explained. http://www.text…

Thanks, I came in here looking for that. Here are some more explanations: http://www.davisimperial.com/resources/care_lables.html

I assume the "No Christmas Crackers" symbol means "Do Not Wring Out".

Re: The best icon is a text label

#8

Post by pool »

For someone who follows HN somewhat, I really don't keep up on any current cool-and-hyped stuff. I'll just see websites become more and more useless with three-stripe icons for menus and then just random mysterious icons, and I'll tell myself that that no doubt these no-context meaningless icons must be derived from whatever iphones are doing this week.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#9

Post by CaptSpify »

pool wrote: post #8

For someone who follows HN somewhat, I really don't keep up on any current cool-and-hyped stuff. I'll just see websites become more and more useless with three-stripe icons for menus and then just random mysterious icons, and I'll tell myself that that no doubt these no-context meaningless icons must be derived from whatever iphones are doing this week.

I always think "Am I turning into a stereotypical old person? Unable to use a computer?" I always feel like I'm just out of touch.
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