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Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

hanselman.com

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

#141

Post by shanselman »

bdunbar wrote: post #125
bitwize wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* ...because they're called folders, and we know how to use them?* Historically they were called directories , which I would love to see a return to from the wrong and infantilizing "folders".

which I would love to see a return to from the wrong and infantilizing "folders". Probably too late. I work with nice guys, progammers in their late 20s, mid-30s, who have only ever known those as 'folders'. By convention at work if it's on a unix-y OS it's a directory, if Windows it's a folder. It's just easier that way.

Good distinction. I hear Mac folks uses both, usually depending on where they started.

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

#142

Post by shanselman »

gbeech wrote: post #36
evoxed wrote: post #32

Around halfway through I jotted down a few thoughts. I like and appreciate people thinking about this sort of thing however, so I'm not saying any of this to offend. > I don't see any reason that we couldn't be storing our files in abstract squares rather than folders in the sky. ...because they're called folders, and we know how to use them? If I said, "Here, have a square," is your first instinct really to think oh…

>Same goes for the clipboard– hell if I know why MS would use that icon for paste, but in no other software that I can think of is that normal. That's easy. When you copy something you place it onto the clipboard, when you past it you are pulling a copy off the clipboard.

I remember some instances of paste being an icon of an actual jar of paste.

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

#143

Post by shanselman »

maaku wrote: post #134
roc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A camera? (snapshot)

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

#144

Post by cdcarter »

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 ?

Four finger pinch does close apps, though. And pinch as zoom makes sense if you ever played with newsprint transfered to silly putty!

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

#145

Post by shanselman »

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…

True, I was stretching on many of them. I ended up not having a good way to end the post, and it seemed like I was saying that "these are all old" when I meant to say "these won't always be around."

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

#146

Post by jreeve »

shanselman wrote: post #140
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?

This reminds me very much of how the genesis of ideographic writing (such as Chinese characters) was related to me. I'm not at all certain that it is correct, but gist of it was that these forms of writing start with illustrations but gradually become encoded over time.

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

#147

Post by shanselman »

landhar wrote: post #74
acheron wrote: post #40

There's a good article to be written on this subject, but this isn't it. "folders": we can go back to "directories" if you'd like. It's still what I say most of the time. "wrenches/screwdrivers/gears": This was the most baffling one. Who's never used a screwdriver? And he says it as if it's obvious. "phone": 75% of the US still has a landline (as of a year ago anyway), so I find "you haven't used this in 20 years" to…

I agree, I was very surprised that he doesn't even mention the "hourglass". It's true that it's less and less frequent but I would argue that it's more common than the floppy disk.

Good one, hourglass, pointer arrow and filmstrip were all obvious ones I missed.

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

#149

Post by cdcarter »

DavidAbrams wrote: post #48
nsmartt wrote: post #8

I have a handset in my house. Envelopes are still used for lots of things. I still get mail. I use screwdrivers pretty often, and I have access to wrenches. I recognize the old microphones from movies (and even if I didn't, they look similar to newer mics.) I've also used a polaroid in the past 5 years. I've also seen TV sets with "rabbit ears" in the past 5 years. The others I'm at least familiar with. I'm 18.

Yep. I'm pretty sure Blue and others sell mics designed to look exactly like those old chrome ones.

Well many large diaphragm condenser mics look like that because that's what the footprint of that kind of microphone is! And Shure still faithfully makes the Super 55, your iconic "Elvis mic."

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

#150

Post by shanselman »

Mz wrote: post #98

Makes me wonder how old the author is. Reminds me of an anecdote I read about an elementary school that had a rotary phone for the kids to use well after digital phones were the norm. The kids had to be taught how to use it. One child ultimately concluded it was not too different from a digital phone though it was real slow. Reminds me of my standard flippant remark to my sons when they were growing up: "When I was a…

I'm 39. The post was written in brief lunchtime fit of get of my lawn. :)
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