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Usability in Icons

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Re: Usability in Icons

#31

Post by calpaterson »

epo wrote: post #16
harrybr wrote: post #8

A great example of the wrong way to report user research. - How many participants were tested? - Who was tested? - What kind of test was it? Survey? Lab study? etc? - Between subjects or within (i.e. did the same people see all the icons)? I could go on.

None of which really matters, at all. It's a blog post not a journal paper or a research report. It would have been nice to see a link to a full account but perhaps they couldn't decide how to represent that.

Apparently it was his bachelors thesis though, so he's (hopefully) written to academic levels of detail before before...

Re: Usability in Icons

#32

Post by tomjen3 »

callahad wrote: post #24
tomjen3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL I guess. And since I don't qualify as a kid, I am guessing that most mid-twenties wouldn't know either.

I think vinyl was still sufficiently popular for most folks in their mid-twenties to recognize it. I'm 25, and several of my grade school classrooms had record players, not to mention all the homes of my parents, their friends, and our extended family. But as far as I can tell, few folks born in the mid-80s had significant direct experience with records, to the point where there were cultural references to our ignora…

It might have been in the US but although my parents sometimes played records I don't think I have ever heard that sound.

Re: Usability in Icons

#33

Post by skrebbel »

Icons, in general, are overrated in my opinion. Only if an icon has a very clear meaning to all it can be safely used. Using an icon anywhere else is a big bet and starts with usability issues. E.g. whoever designed the play/pause/stop/previous/next buttons pulled that off, but it's a risk.

I think a button that says "Save" is much clearer than a floppy disk. I think a button that says "Link" (or "Insert Link") is much clearer than a globe, a chain or whatever weird arrow you can come up with.

I never understood why so much software has so many icons. I also think MS got it right in Office 2007+ with the ribbon, which essentially was made to enable "more text, less reliance on icons".

I don't know any software that I find easy to use that relies on icons.

Re: Usability in Icons

#34

Post by harrybr »

epo wrote: post #16
harrybr wrote: post #8

A great example of the wrong way to report user research. - How many participants were tested? - Who was tested? - What kind of test was it? Survey? Lab study? etc? - Between subjects or within (i.e. did the same people see all the icons)? I could go on.

None of which really matters, at all. It's a blog post not a journal paper or a research report. It would have been nice to see a link to a full account but perhaps they couldn't decide how to represent that.

Omitting these details turns it into "a fun discussion". Including these details (even as a footnote) would turn it into a potentially useful piece of research.

Re: Usability in Icons

#35

Post by gus_massa »

harrybr wrote: post #8

A great example of the wrong way to report user research. - How many participants were tested? - Who was tested? - What kind of test was it? Survey? Lab study? etc? - Between subjects or within (i.e. did the same people see all the icons)? I could go on.

I guest that the number of participants is 99. (I don't have the real data.)

                |  Yes U.    Not U. |   Yes U.    Not U.
  --------------+-------------------+--------------------
   Bold         |  99/99      0/99  |  100.00%     0.00%
   Italic       |  99/99      0/99  |  100.00%     0.00%
   Underlined   |  99/99      0/99  |  100.00%     0.00%
   Strike-t.    |  54/99     45/99  |   54.55%    45.45%
   L. Chain     |  35/99     64/99  |   35.29%    64.71%
   L. Globe     |  25/99     74/99  |   25.00%    75.00%
   Ordered L.   |  99/99      0/99  |  100.00%     0.00%
   Unordered L. |  93/99      6/99  |   93.94%     6.06%
   Image        |  78/99     21/99  |   78.79%    21.21%
   Undo         |  57/99     42/99  |   57.58%    42.42%
   Redo         |  51/99     48/99  |   51.52%    48.48%
PS: Your decimals leak information. :)

Re: Usability in Icons

#36

Post by zb »

peng wrote: post #26

Why not write "Link" instead of "WWW"? Clearer and to the point.

Because "Link" only means "link" in English, whereas "WWW" means "WWW" everywhere the web is.

Re: Usability in Icons

#37

Post by crazygringo »

The big problem with a chain icon is that it depends on English as well, because a "hyperlink" and "chain link" have absolutely nothing to do with each other, except that in English they both contain "link".

I agree with the first commented in the blog... an arrow that points to a page, or an arrow pointing from one page to another.

Kind of makes me feel stupid for never having thought of it, but I'll be using it the next time I solve this problem!

Re: Usability in Icons

#38

Post by crazygringo »

RyanGWU82 wrote: post #2

It drives my boss crazy that the universal icon for Save is a picture of a floppy disk. We haven't been saving documents to floppy since 1993! But it's also scary to be the first one to buck the trend, so our product uses the same floppy disk as everyone else...

When I was a kid, for years I thought the paint-bucket icon for "fill" in paint programs was a graduation cap. After all, it was diamond-shaped and seemed to have a little tassel at the end. It confused me to no end why MacPaint would use that as a 'fill' symbol.

Re: Usability in Icons

#39

Post by crazygringo »

skrebbel wrote: post #33

Icons, in general, are overrated in my opinion. Only if an icon has a very clear meaning to all it can be safely used. Using an icon anywhere else is a big bet and starts with usability issues. E.g. whoever designed the play/pause/stop/previous/next buttons pulled that off, but it's a risk. I think a button that says "Save" is much clearer than a floppy disk. I think a button that says "Link" (or "Insert Link") is mu…

Icons in a toolbar are like keyboard shortcuts: they have to be learned, but in the end they're more efficient.

And they're not labelled (but usually have tooltips) because of screen real estate. They're simply faster shortcuts to menu options, or dialog-box options.

Re: Usability in Icons

#40

Post by gcb »

Kwpolska wrote: post #25
gcb wrote: post #21

> Bold: 100% well, they didn't asked anyone outside of the english speaking world. Where I came from, everyone knows "N" is for bold text. Also, having studied cognitive sciences in my free time, the author should learn soon that icons are not meant for discovery or explanation. They are place holders. Tokens for your mind to return to effortlessness. So, the save icon could be an Elephant (my old idea, nobody likes)…

Do you have different icons in Word, too?

yep. word. and ctrl+n sets bold. it's all aligned.

and that drives me crazy when i use somebody else's computer in portuguese... the worst offender is that ctrl+A does not select all... don't even remember what it does... but you need ctrl+t to select all. it's a train wreck. and there's no way to quickly change the shortcuts to another language when you sit down at the computer... have to change the computer language.

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