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Noun Project – Icons for Everything

thenounproject.com

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Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#131
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

But who needs exclusivity for proof of concepts?

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean the one that is nearly universally hated? Those ribbons were a huge mistake and fuck you to users who knew how to use the software; it sucks.

The UX idea wasn't bad but the arbitrary grouping and the deep nesting ruined it.

They did not give enough thought to the user workflow and mental process to locate things (i.e. Why inserting and deleting a row had a completely different workflow at the beginning)

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Icons and text are exactly the same thing." Nope. Icons are direct visual analogs of the things represented. There's just one layer of abstraction: thing -> picture of thing. An icon, at least in principle, looks like the thing represented (or at least like some important property of it). That's feasible for "save" or "center the text", but starts to get pretty damned hard when it's something like "Earl Warren's opi…

What is the "thing" that directly represents save? A floppy disk? Yeah no abstraction there. Moron.

[deleted]

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#135
post #54

I read some designers discussing the filter icon usually being a funnel which doesn't do much filtering. It does funnel something into something. https://thenounproject.com/search/?q=filter interesting to see the other options that show up.

When I was studying organic chemistry we'd use funnels as filters all the time. I suppose most people wouldn't know about that though.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Icons and text are exactly the same thing." Nope. Icons are direct visual analogs of the things represented. There's just one layer of abstraction: thing -> picture of thing. An icon, at least in principle, looks like the thing represented (or at least like some important property of it). That's feasible for "save" or "center the text", but starts to get pretty damned hard when it's something like "Earl Warren's opi…

> Icons are direct visual analogs of the things represented. Counter example: The universal icon for "play", as in to play a movie, is a right facing arrow. It is not a visual analog of anything, since playing a movie is an entirely abstract concept. The same is true of rewind, pause, and most other controls on a VCR. Having two icons next to each other, one that looks like a "+" and the other that looks like a "-" i…

"The universal icon for "play", as in to play a movie, is a right facing arrow. It is not a visual analog of anything"

Of course it is.

The very reason it's called an "arrow" is because it is fundamentally a visual analog of a physical arrow, which moves linearly through space.

Note that the icon to go backward is an arrow pointing the other way.

Now, the stop button is more of an abstraction, to be sure.

"one that looks like a "+" and the other that looks like a "-"

+ and - are text, not icons. Written mathematics is a form of text.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Icons and text are exactly the same thing." Nope. Icons are direct visual analogs of the things represented. There's just one layer of abstraction: thing -> picture of thing. An icon, at least in principle, looks like the thing represented (or at least like some important property of it). That's feasible for "save" or "center the text", but starts to get pretty damned hard when it's something like "Earl Warren's opi…

What is the "thing" that directly represents save? A floppy disk? Yeah no abstraction there. Moron.

Yes, a floppy disk. The physical thing that you save data on. More correctly, the physical thing that you used to save data on when the icon was created.

"Moron", indeed.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#138
post #78

I always look for the icons with multiple gears. Have not found one which would actually work: Gears not touching, size difference blocks, or three gears in deadlock. :)

Hey only one of my gear icons wouldn't work :) https://thenounproject.com/blackspike/collection/gears/

Great work! :)

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#139
post #65
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 did a workup of the iphone with no icons and just text: http://justinvincent.com/page/2387/if-the-iphone-used-text-l... It shows just how stark an interface can look without them.

I like the text only version a lot. The top icons could still be graphics as they are more gauges than icons. The cognitive load of a million different icons, mostly different per application is too much in my opinion. I would include this under design cleverness vs usability.

Symbolics Genera used an all text approach. Experimentally testing of text vs icons would be very interesting.

Re: Noun Project – Icons for Everything

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the one that is nearly universally hated? Those ribbons were a huge mistake and fuck you to users who knew how to use the software; it sucks.

The UX idea wasn't bad but the arbitrary grouping and the deep nesting ruined it. They did not give enough thought to the user workflow and mental process to locate things (i.e. Why inserting and deleting a row had a completely different workflow at the beginning)

What they didn't give a thought too, was that this wasn't a new product and you can't drastically change things like that when you have a large existing user base that rely on your product day in and day out. They functionally broke the product for most of their users; I've never heard anyone in the word place compliment it, it's universally hated. The only people who seem to like it are designers, who frankly tend to come off as clueless to what real users just trying to get a job done actually want.
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