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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]

#101

Post by lomnakkus »

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,…

I don't think it's actually that heretical. Most icons are actually quite culture-specific (i.e. mostly "western") even though we like to think otherwise. A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette -- there are few people these days who have actually physically interacted with a Diskette (of whatever circumference).

Another favorite of mine is the "random hand gesture (emot)icon". The conventions for this around the world are, apparently, all over the place(!). Some places a thumbs-up means "great!", and in other places it means "I your wife!". (Maybe that's a myth, though.)

> Sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures.

Definitely. Just to pick a few trivial examples: "solitude", "happiness", "love", "depeche mode". Alright, that last one was two words, but it was a single "token" in our common language.

EDIT: Just as a side note: This is really fascinating stuff! It's really hard to tease apart what is "cultural" (i.e. local tribe) vs. what is "hardwired" (i.e. "genetics").

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

#102

Post by 13of40 »

nicky0 wrote: post #22
ArmandGrillet wrote: post #8

Except for calories, I would not be able to understand what means the information on nutrient icons without having the corresponding word next to it.

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…

So why not just snap to simplified Chinese? You'd get a billion person headstart and the ideograms are probably just as arbitrary.

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

#103

Post by factsaresacred »

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.

The line simply shows one third of your recommended daily allowance (based of the somewhat popular notion of "three square meals a day" I imagine). If anything it's useful.

A single serving that breaches the line should be treated with caution, making it straightforward to understand which foods are contributing disproportionately to your daily allowance.

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

#105

Post by baddox »

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?

> McDonald’s faced this daunting challenge with its recent Nutrition Information Initiative (NII). The company wanted to make nutrition information more accessible and understandable to the average consumer, and determined through extensive research that visual icons representing key food nutrients (protein, for example) were the appropriate course of action.

It sounds like McDonald's had decided the icons were the way to go before bringing in this translation company.

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

#107

Post by throwaway91111 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #48
throwaway91111 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My intuition disagrees. Besides, what on earth do carbs have to do with vegetables? If anything, i would expect bread to fill that role.

Bread is made from grass seeds.

So what? Go eat some grass if it's the same.

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

#108

Post by Retric »

factsaresacred wrote: post #103
Retric wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The line simply shows one third of your recommended daily allowance (based of the somewhat popular notion of "three square meals a day" I imagine). If anything it's useful. A single serving that breaches the line should be treated with caution, making it straightforward to understand which foods are contributing disproportionately to your daily allowance.

Consider your looking at fries and it's 30% of your daily sodium intake which is below the line. But, it's only 10% of your daily calorie intake because it's a side for one meal. In that context it's sodium relative to calories that's important or sodium in combination with the rest of your meal. In none of those cases is a line at 33.3% useful for anything.

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

#109

Post by solidsnack9000 »

Maybe the solution to iconography needs like this is Chinese characters. Many of the design criteria -- legibility at various sizes, distinctness, adaptability to different layouts and colors -- are readily met.

Two character combinations for some of the McDonald's symbology can be kind of complicated, though:

蛋白 dànbái = protein

脂肪 zhīfáng = fat

醣類 tánglèi = carbohydrates

熱量 rèliàng = calories

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

#110

Post by usaphp »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #109

Maybe the solution to iconography needs like this is Chinese characters. Many of the design criteria -- legibility at various sizes, distinctness, adaptability to different layouts and colors -- are readily met. Two character combinations for some of the McDonald's symbology can be kind of complicated, though: 蛋白 dànbái = protein 脂肪 zhīfáng = fat 醣類 tánglèi = carbohydrates 熱量 rèliàng = calories

Sorry I don't understand your comment, in the first part you propose a solution, but then you explain why it won't not work.

Icons should be universally distinguishable/recognizable, I as a european do not see any easy distinction between the characters you just wrote, they all seem similar to my.

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