Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#131

Post by damian2000 » Thu, May 10, 2012, 3:58 AM UTC

I believe this post to be the definitive authority on the subject of dead icons ... ;-)

http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/3117/save-icon-is-the-...

seriously - there's some good points made here, including:

"The floppy disk icon is an idiom, not a metaphor. It doesn't matter that we're no longer writing files on 1.44MB 3.5" disks. It doesn't matter that many users don't even know what a floppy disk is. What matters is that users associate the icon with saving." -- Patrick McElhaney

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#132

Post by pmiller2 » Thu, May 10, 2012, 4:13 AM UTC

radley wrote: post #10

That is not a floppy disk. It's a Save icon. See the difference?

| <- Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#133

Post by davidjohnstone » Thu, May 10, 2012, 4:32 AM UTC

tomflack wrote: post #127

This is awfully condescending towards people in their twenties and younger. > Want to indicate Settings or Setup to a twenty something? Show them a tool they've never used in their lives. > If you don't know who Johnny Carson is, how could you know that this is a old-style microphone? > No one under 30 has seen a Polaroid in years but we keep using them for icons. We don't live in a cultural vacuum where everything t…

I didn't like the post as much as I expected to.

The floppy disk as an icon for save is a legitimate complaint, in the sense that it is early technology that has been deprecated by later technology, and [almost] nobody will ever use one again.

That said, good luck finding a new icon. The difficulty is that the concept of "saving" only came about with computers, and unlike zooming or even grouping things together in folders, finding a real-life pictorial representation of saving is... difficult.

But the others... The last time I checked, bookmarks, calendars, envelopes, magnifying glasses, and screwdrivers all exist in the real world and are used regularly by a lot of people, and they aren't going to go away any time soon.

Also, it's not hard to find microphones today that look a lot like the one in the icon.

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#134

Post by maaku » Thu, May 10, 2012, 4:36 AM UTC

roc wrote: post #69

MBlume wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the stackoverflow thread linked by rapidnsnail: > I tried this on my 9 and 13 year old nephews. I asked what does this button mean? "Save" they both answered immediately. Then I asked what the image looks like? They had no idea - not even a suggestion (which is fair since they haven't ever seen a disk). So I guess the meaning has overriden the image itself in the icon so we're stuck with it. http://stackoverflow…

Well that particular one we don't have to worry about. The expectation of having to explicitly 'save' an electronic file is (finally) on its way out.

Really? Than what do you call the action of making particular snapshots of file state?

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#135

Post by DanBC » Thu, May 10, 2012, 4:51 AM UTC

davidjohnstone wrote: post #133

tomflack wrote: post #127

This is awfully condescending towards people in their twenties and younger. > Want to indicate Settings or Setup to a twenty something? Show them a tool they've never used in their lives. > If you don't know who Johnny Carson is, how could you know that this is a old-style microphone? > No one under 30 has seen a Polaroid in years but we keep using them for icons. We don't live in a cultural vacuum where everything t…

I didn't like the post as much as I expected to. The floppy disk as an icon for save is a legitimate complaint, in the sense that it is early technology that has been deprecated by later technology, and [almost] nobody will ever use one again. That said, good luck finding a new icon. The difficulty is that the concept of "saving" only came about with computers, and unlike zooming or even grouping things together in f…

I'm glad we're using a floppy disk rather than the alternative (dead now) "piggy bank".

Imagine how confused most people are seeing a tiny pig in the tool bar. It's an effort to get from "little pig" to "piggy bank" to "save". And that's for people with english as a first language.

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#136

Post by Tloewald » Thu, May 10, 2012, 4:53 AM UTC

Icons are becoming dead metaphors, which is fine. We pick concrete concepts to represent abstract processes and eventually the concrete concept becomes obsolete. This is exactly what happens with language -- should we stop using the word "deadline" because we've forgotten what it used to mean before it became a metaphor for a due date?

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#137

Post by paulsutter » Thu, May 10, 2012, 4:53 AM UTC

Great thought provoking article.

A general tone of "isn't this interesting" rather than "isn't this stupid", might reduce the negative reactions.

It never occurred to me before that the use of physical objects for software functionality may be transitory. Clearly these icons do work today (and their use is not stupid), but it's probably a matter of time that a new approach may be needed.

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#138

Post by shanselman » Thu, May 10, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #137

Great thought provoking article. A general tone of "isn't this interesting" rather than "isn't this stupid", might reduce the negative reactions. It never occurred to me before that the use of physical objects for software functionality may be transitory. Clearly these icons do work today (and their use is not stupid), but it's probably a matter of time that a new approach may be needed.

Thanks, that is a good point. I was aiming for "isn't this silly" but your point is well taken.

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#139

Post by billpatrianakos » Thu, May 10, 2012, 5:01 AM UTC

excuse-me wrote: post #115

radley wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what the gear is you mention, but I can't think of another company that has Apple's drive for intuitive UI, which is the fundamental purpose of icons. In contrast, HN is a text-dominant application designed for text-dominant users...

Innovative doesn't mean intuitive - why is pinch zoom? Wouldn't it be more intuitive for pinch to close an app - after all you pinch things closed ?

Pinch isn't zoom. Unpinch in zoom. It would be intuitive for pinch to close an app, but not more intuitive, because in some apps your intent to zoom out could be confused with wanting to close the app (mobile Safari) and for other apps accidental finger brushes might cause an accidental closing of an app. The way touch gestures work now actually make a lot of sense. It seems like you're reaching.

Re: Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

#140

Post by shanselman » Thu, May 10, 2012, 5:01 AM UTC

moocow01 wrote: post #126

The problem is that if we modernized most of our iconography, a heck of a lot of things won't be able to be represented simply with something distinctive enough. This is largely due to what I'll call the merging of things into the same form largely driven by computing. For example... Icon for a phone - rectangular screen Icon for a TV - rectangular screen Icon for a tablet - rectangular screen Icon for a camera - rec…

Exactly, I suspect there is nothing we can replace it with. A TV with rabbit ears will always be a TV - perhaps a hundred years from now?