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Noun Project – Icons for Everything

thenounproject.com

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Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#41

Post by woodrowbarlow »

andruby wrote: post #37
xs wrote: post #22

I think $40/yr or $2/icon is too far out of reach for me to use these icons as a proof of concept, blog, or early website launches. I have a website idea which would use about 100 of these icons, but I can't justify the cost yet since it brings in no revenue.

$40/yr isn't that expensive for "artwork". Domain names and hosting can be more expensive. Hiring a graphical artist for an hour will probably be a lot more expensive

hiring a graphic designer usually means you get exclusive rights to their output, which is a tremendous difference.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#42

Post by coldtea »

WalterBright wrote: post #38
everyone wrote: post #7

Little pictograms for buttons are often extremely vague and open to interpretation. Eg. Heres a random game where upon opening it I was immediately confused http://mobile.cdn.softpedia.com/apk/images/color-switch_1.jp... (also the icons are all animated / rotating, making it even more confusing, made this game menu stick out in my memory as an egregious example) Some designers seems to love the minimalism of if thoug…

> it will need to be translated Is translating it harder than trying to look up what a picture means on the internet? Is it harder to learn what the word "SAVE" means than to learn that a square box with a circle in it means "save"? The idea that icons are universal is utter bunk.

>Is it harder to learn what the word "SAVE" means than to learn that a square box with a circle in it means "save"?

Yes. The second is more distinct visually from other icons, and you can even discern it with just a glance, whereas various words are all juxtapositions of letters. There's a reason traffic signs the world over use a visual language.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#43

Post by throwthisawayt »

xs wrote: post #22

I think $40/yr or $2/icon is too far out of reach for me to use these icons as a proof of concept, blog, or early website launches. I have a website idea which would use about 100 of these icons, but I can't justify the cost yet since it brings in no revenue.

If you are on a developer salary this makes no sense

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#44

Post by WalterBright »

coldtea wrote: post #42
WalterBright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it will need to be translated Is translating it harder than trying to look up what a picture means on the internet? Is it harder to learn what the word "SAVE" means than to learn that a square box with a circle in it means "save"? The idea that icons are universal is utter bunk.

> Is it harder to learn what the word "SAVE" means than to learn that a square box with a circle in it means "save"? Yes. The second is more distinct visually from other icons, and you can even discern it with just a glance, whereas various words are all juxtapositions of letters. There's a reason traffic signs the world over use a visual language.

Wow.

Suppose I see a squiggle on some program. Where do I go to look up its meaning? I can't even type it in.

Let's take that | that now means "ON" on electrical equipment. If you guessed that it meant "1" because you're a computer/electrical engineer, wouldn't you already know what "ON" meant? If you aren't, how would you guess what | means? Flip the switch back and forth to see what it does?

If you're resorting to that, why bother marking the switch at all?

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#46

Post by noxToken »

yoz-y wrote: post #27
everyone wrote: post #7

Little pictograms for buttons are often extremely vague and open to interpretation. Eg. Heres a random game where upon opening it I was immediately confused http://mobile.cdn.softpedia.com/apk/images/color-switch_1.jp... (also the icons are all animated / rotating, making it even more confusing, made this game menu stick out in my memory as an egregious example) Some designers seems to love the minimalism of if thoug…

That really depends. Can you imagine photoshop's interface if it were all text? This is an extreme example but more generally I think text is better for discoverability but icons are better for visual memory and thus better suited for buttons in applications you use often. On desktop there are always tool tips. On touch interfaces this was not yet figured out.

Android has toast messages baked in. When you long press something, it can display a small tooltip at the bottom with the message. Toasts disappear automatically, and they are dismissable with another touch event.

iOS doesn't have the equivalent by default, but Stack Overflow shows that this behavior is achievable.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#47

Post by WalterBright »

There are about a million words in the English language. The site has a long way to go to get to "everything". Me, I'll stick with phonetic alphabets, which have long displaced icons.

Interestingly, iconic languages usually wound up assigning sounds to the icons and were transformed into phonetic alphabets. Icons just aren't practical.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#48

Post by user5994461 »

yoz-y wrote: post #27
everyone wrote: post #7

Little pictograms for buttons are often extremely vague and open to interpretation. Eg. Heres a random game where upon opening it I was immediately confused http://mobile.cdn.softpedia.com/apk/images/color-switch_1.jp... (also the icons are all animated / rotating, making it even more confusing, made this game menu stick out in my memory as an egregious example) Some designers seems to love the minimalism of if thoug…

That really depends. Can you imagine photoshop's interface if it were all text? This is an extreme example but more generally I think text is better for discoverability but icons are better for visual memory and thus better suited for buttons in applications you use often. On desktop there are always tool tips. On touch interfaces this was not yet figured out.

That's why the ribbon interface came to existence in office.

Much bigger than the traditional menu bar. Enough room to have big meaningful pictures and a text.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#49

Post by grimmdude »

yoz-y wrote: post #27
everyone wrote: post #7

Little pictograms for buttons are often extremely vague and open to interpretation. Eg. Heres a random game where upon opening it I was immediately confused http://mobile.cdn.softpedia.com/apk/images/color-switch_1.jp... (also the icons are all animated / rotating, making it even more confusing, made this game menu stick out in my memory as an egregious example) Some designers seems to love the minimalism of if thoug…

That really depends. Can you imagine photoshop's interface if it were all text? This is an extreme example but more generally I think text is better for discoverability but icons are better for visual memory and thus better suited for buttons in applications you use often. On desktop there are always tool tips. On touch interfaces this was not yet figured out.

I feel like icons can encourage application exploration too, which could be a good thing.
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