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McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

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Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#81

Post by thaumasiotes »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #57
thaumasiotes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread is made from grass seeds.

So is grain alcohol. That does not make it plant matter. Both are so far removed from "plants" that the association with it's original components is effectively meaningless. Bread is not a plant product, it is its own thing: a bread product.

Compare the equivalent product, rice. Rice is stewed grass seeds. You don't think it's a plant product? Are potatoes a plant product?

Grain alcohol, depending on how you prepare it, might easily retain no trace of biological material other than sugar and alcohol. That is not true of bread; bread is not heavily processed at all. You could trivially analyze any sample of bread and determine what plants it was made from.

Claiming that bread is not a plant product makes all the sense of claiming that cheese is not a milk product.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#82

Post by microcolonel »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #77
commieneko wrote: post #76

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much. Especially in technology and science. Navigation can make good use of icons. Left, right, up, down, start, stop, these kinds of things can be learned and used widely. Somethings like text manipulation icons, cursors, insertions, selections, can be used effectively,…

A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...

For what it's worth, I've never really needed to read those icons (I only own two categories of clothing: carefree machine washable clothes, and drycleaning clothes); but if I did, a lot of them would make intuitive sense, especially the ones regarding load size, wringing, ironing and iron temperatures, the no-chlorine symbol... Some of them are a bit ambiguous, but it seems like it's a fair trade for the reduction in tag size, and international accessibility.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#83

Post by microcolonel »

Retric wrote: post #59
nicky0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: > “We realize that some of the visuals may not already be strongly linked in consumer minds to the nutrient they are meant to depict in all markets.” > “We intend to promote understanding of the images through supporting materials in Europe, from web sites to images explained on tray liners and via in-store displays,” ... > “After repeated exposure to these images, customers should eventually grasp their me…

What I found most interesting was not the rather meaningless icon choices, but the incredibly deceptive dotted line seen on page 12. It's basically anchoring people in a meaningless way such that not everything seems bad. Without the line it's like 50% more sodium relative to the number of calories I am eating. That's terrible. With the line ehh, I guess everything looks ok.

Is the dotted line deceptive? It just seems like a ⅓DV line (for the large number of people who eat three meals in a day), which clearly shows you that this meal is high in sodium, so should be accompanied with other meals which are lower in sodium.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#84

Post by microcolonel »

skookumchuck wrote: post #64
jhbadger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah -- think about a lot of commonly accepted icons, like for nuclear radiation or biohazards. Or even the weird icons like those for "pause" and "record" on media devices -- these aren't intuitive icons, we've just gotten used to them.

None of the icons McDonald's chose as their final ones had any meaning to me without a translation chart. How is that different from learning what a word means? Didn't anyone at McDonald's dare to question the basic idea of this?

Are you saying it would be better to just teach their customers the English words for these things? Esperanto? I mean, I might probably agree with that, but I don't know that the customers would.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#85

Post by owenversteeg »

Okay, I've got a crazy idea. Why not create a combination of words that expresses the thing, instead of these very weird and incomprehensible-at-first-glance icons?

For example, for proteins: the word "protein" is understandable in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Swedish. The Russian "belok" should be understandable to Polish and Russian speakers, and the Dutch "eiwitten" should be understandable to Dutch and German speakers. Thus, writing "protein/belok/eiwitten" would be understood by almost everyone. "kcal" is even simpler and should be understood by almost everyone everywhere - maybe make it "kcal/calories" for more readability. "salt/sol/αλάτι" should cover everybody as well. Perhaps throw in the Cyrillic as well if McDonalds expects a large amount of uneducated Russians in their restaurants.

You could even put the native language in front to prevent any insult to cultures. Am I crazy, or might this actually work?

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#86

Post by throwaway2048 »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #77
commieneko wrote: post #76

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much. Especially in technology and science. Navigation can make good use of icons. Left, right, up, down, start, stop, these kinds of things can be learned and used widely. Somethings like text manipulation icons, cursors, insertions, selections, can be used effectively,…

A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...

The problem here is separating what made ios/android successful and what was merely incidental, or even harmful.

eg. Steve jobs was an asshole, but being an asshole doesn't make you Steve Jobs, and maybe being an asshole was not a major part of what he accomplished.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#88

Post by Opalhart »

owenversteeg wrote: post #85

Okay, I've got a crazy idea. Why not create a combination of words that expresses the thing, instead of these very weird and incomprehensible-at-first-glance icons? For example, for proteins: the word "protein" is understandable in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Swedish. The Russian "belok" should be understandable to Polish and Russian speakers, and the Dutch "eiwitten" should be understand…

What about people in those countries who cant read?

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#89

Post by CamperBob2 »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #77
commieneko wrote: post #76

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much. Especially in technology and science. Navigation can make good use of icons. Left, right, up, down, start, stop, these kinds of things can be learned and used widely. Somethings like text manipulation icons, cursors, insertions, selections, can be used effectively,…

A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...

Nothing heretical about it. Many of Earth's greatest civilizations used icons and pictograms. They have all either long since moved away from them (Egypt), or sincerely regret ever having thought of them (China).

Icons are the easiest, most economical way to do internationalization. That's really the only reason we still use them at all. They were never about making life easy for the user. Some people initially thought they'd help in that respect, but they were wrong.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#90

Post by skrause »

owenversteeg wrote: post #85

Okay, I've got a crazy idea. Why not create a combination of words that expresses the thing, instead of these very weird and incomprehensible-at-first-glance icons? For example, for proteins: the word "protein" is understandable in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Swedish. The Russian "belok" should be understandable to Polish and Russian speakers, and the Dutch "eiwitten" should be understand…

As a German I would not understand "eiwitten" as "Eiweiß". However, the word "Protein" is also used in Germany as a regular alternative to "Eiweiß".
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