> Don’t use an icon if its meaning isn’t a 100% clear to everyone. When in doubt, skip the icon. Reside to simple copy. A text label is always clearer. The article is misguided, in that it assumes that the meaning of an icon only exists in the lines/color/visual form of the icon. Icons are visual language . You have to teach the user what the icon means. Either the user has seen the icon before (such as in airports),…
You can't look up an icon. You can't google an icon. You have to hope there's a tooltip for it.
I can look up a word written in a phonetic alphabet.
We stopped using them because we changed the language we speak due to external factors like being conquered and dominated by foreigners who brought their language and writing system with them. It wasn't a voluntary act, trust me and with the rise of the emojis as a medium of communication, I can say that we or the ancient Egyptians had it right all along in using hieroglyphs.
Oh, OK. Those damn foreign imperialists again, always oppressing our hieroglyphics. I'm out. This thread is 200TB of crazy on a 10TB drive.
Are you familiar with Alexander son of Philip, of Macedon, there was a song about him.
Oh, OK. Those damn foreign imperialists again, always oppressing our hieroglyphics. I'm out. This thread is 200TB of crazy on a 10TB drive.
I'm afraid that the only one not making any sense on this thread is you. We didn't drop the use of our indigenous writing system in favor of that of the Romans or the Arabs because we thought that theirs are superior than ours, we dropped them because we were conquered and dominated and we had to adopt the cultural norms of the invaders. Also, you're EXTREMELY overestimating the individual agency of the ancient Egypt…
> only a certain class or caste had the privilege to be able to read and write
And in fact that's why they're HIEROglyphics, they were the priestly writings. (compare to demotic, as also seen on the Rosetta stone).
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.
Should replace the hamburger icon with the letters "MENU". Problem solved.
Here's one argument you can use against icon advocates: "The ancient Egyptians already tried hieroglyphics. They didn't work. What makes you think they will this time?" Still waiting for a good answer to this one. When someone does successfully counter it, I imagine the rebuttal will involve Chinese pictograms or something else that has worked well for a while but isn't likely to survive the next thousand years.
Have you ever actually studied a language involving "pictograms" or are you just making assumptions? I didn't take Chinese long enough to get a feel for it one way or the other but in Japanese kanji will remain in the language from here until the end of the Japanese language. Japanese has a limited set of sounds and Japanese written completely phonetically is not only extremely long, but once you learn the kanji it b…
I actually have studied Japanese for a while and have no clue what you are describing as extremely long.
In hiragana you have 48 letters for sounds which in most cases are a consonant + vowel. Hence Japanese written in Hiragana or Katakana is shorter than it would be if it was written with a western alphabet. Japanese is probably not the language with shortest words, but neither are they exceptionally long.
I remember getting into a debate about this subject with a self-described UI expert. It was part enlightening and part frustrating. He failed to see the point that so many of his ideas were US-centric, and didn't make sense in any context outside of English-speaking languages, and to be honest, they barely made sense in English. The author brings up Gmail, which has an icon for "archive" that makes zero sense no matt…
I don't think this is "zero empathy for the end-user", I think this is desperation. As companies and "product managers" get more statistical data on real-world clicks and usage and do more usability studies, they see that 90% of users don't know how to do anything. And they get desperate to "fix" that. They go for drastic re-designs, get rid of all the text because "nobody" reads it, hide all the features because the…
Things about users don't know anything makes me really frustrated, they just need to learn something to use new application, even changes of color can be confusing. I usually ended up with most common design my target user use.
I agree. Whenever the option to change icons to text labels is available, I will use it. It's a shame that Apple's finder is ostensibly shit when it comes to text label support. No forward, no change/shadow when `pressed`, etc. It's been maddening trying to use most websites these days that load 20MB of javascript and abstract their interface elements behind incomprehensible picons and boxes. http://i.imgur.com/YyOYq…
I have no idea what that screenshot is of, but it sure as hell ain't the proper Finder. Maybe it's a look-alike skin for Gnome or something?
I remember getting into a debate about this subject with a self-described UI expert. It was part enlightening and part frustrating. He failed to see the point that so many of his ideas were US-centric, and didn't make sense in any context outside of English-speaking languages, and to be honest, they barely made sense in English. The author brings up Gmail, which has an icon for "archive" that makes zero sense no matt…
I don't think this is "zero empathy for the end-user", I think this is desperation. As companies and "product managers" get more statistical data on real-world clicks and usage and do more usability studies, they see that 90% of users don't know how to do anything. And they get desperate to "fix" that. They go for drastic re-designs, get rid of all the text because "nobody" reads it, hide all the features because the…
UI usage statistics are often biased (power user deactivate tracking). A/B testing and watching real end users using your product is better.