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Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#141

Post by omnimus »

ndespres wrote: post #124

I agree with the author. I understand many of the reasons others give here for why icons could be beneficial- localization, literacy, vision issues, etc. all are great reasons to supplement text with icons, theoretically. But I disagree that these icons, I mean those shown as examples in the Apple menu, Safari menu, or Google Docs menus- actually convey anything useful and really do prove the authors point that they’…

It doesn't actually matter that much what the icon is. It's impossible to creat icons people would fully understand - otherwise you wouldn't need a label at all.

The function of the icon is to have distinct shape so you are able to visually distinguish menu items quickly in future (more you use the app).

There are other factors like consistent placement that can help. This icon approach is good especially if you have common shared menu items over the OS or they change their placement throughout the app.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#142

Post by breppp »

petesergeant wrote: post #119
drdeadringer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After my stroke 3 years ago, I find myself in a place meeting accessibility. So the icons are helpful. I cannot necessarily read the text.

Genuinely curious if the item types in as shown in the article are that helpful though. They seem small, fiddly, hard to distinguish between, and not especially intuitive.

did not undergo a stroke, but I find myself often navigating menu by memorizing the location in the menu, I also use the icons for memorizing and then I can speed up by not reading.

The first time I noticed that is the time I needed to operate a Finnish Windows machine and I could get it working pretty good by sheer memory

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#143

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

Pictograms in the interface are not decoration. Their purpose is to convey information in limited space. (The information should be that could be conveyed this way.) Currently they are often used as decorations or these two uses are mixed up. This is a mistake.

(It is interesting and saddening to see how years of UI research just went down the drain after Apple "resurrection". In my impression Apple was the first that started to lose their carefully collected UI expertise and replace it something that was original for the time, but that was all. E.g. I remember the very first ads after Jobs' comeback. They still had the beige Macintoshes, but their ads changed. Instead of a typical computer ad that showed a computer with a turned on screen and some desktop picture Apple's ads pictured turned off computers photographed from unusual angles or in unusual positions, like keyboard standing on its side leaning on the box, mouse hanging on its wire and so on. It was different, indeed, it stood out. Thing is, to always strive for that is harmful. Especially for user interface, where the motto is: do not make it original, make it right.)

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#144

Post by antonvs »

DonHopkins wrote: post #114
antonvs wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/03/why-i-could-care-le... I tend to assume that anyone who objects to “I could care less” has never lived in the New York City area. See the mention of Yiddish in the above link. But for some who object to it, that’s the issue: it’s a shibboleth of a culture they’re not part of.

If you're a fan of de-emphasizing your agency with the passive voice, then you can say "less could be cared for by me" or just "less could be cared for" if you totally want to totally avoid responsibility for not caring. I loved MrHeather's comment (who worked with Weird Al to animate Word Crimes): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823632 MrHeather on April 9, 2020 | parent | next [–] When I first met with Al ab…

As an immigrant to the US, I'm a fan of recognizing that there are cultures different from my own. But sometimes, when encountering unthinking US bigotry, it can be difficult to keep that in mind.

Have you ever traveled outside the US? I don't just mean to CS conferences, I mean really traveling.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#145

Post by inejge »

quamserena wrote: post #88
0manrho wrote: post #43

From an accessibility/localization stand point, icons+text everywhere seems to be ideal. Also, I disagree with: > This posture lends itself to a practice where designers have an attitude of “I need an icon to fill up this space” Sure, that does technically happen, but is in no way preventative or mutually exclusive with the follow on thought: > Does ... the cognitive load of parsing and understanding it, help or hurt…

Yes, I agree. Maybe if you’re a fast reader icons don’t do much, but for people who are illiterate (20% of America) they figure out how to use tech by memorizing the icons and locations of buttons.

There's illiteracy, and there's functional illiteracy. They're not the same, and people often confuse the two. A literally illiterate person (ha!) wouldn't make headway with almost any realistic computer interface, icons or not.

The 20% statistic is about people who have great trouble reading and comprehending simple sentences, not discerning individual words. It's tragic and debilitating, but such people could muddle through a simple interface with textual labels. A truly illiterate person couldn't.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#146

Post by mock-possum »

It really depends. If it works it works, if it doesn’t it doesn’t, like everything else.

But I do feel like he’s hurting his case here:

> You know what would be a fun game? Get a bunch of people in a room, show them menus where the textual labels are gone, and see who can get the most right.

That’s an excellent example of how effective icons actually are! I can mostly read that menu at a glance with no text lables, because good use of iconography doesn’t assign “arbitrary” icons to options, jt fields well-known icons that are easily recognizeable. Take for instance the ‘save’ icon - everybody knows what the floppy disc means, even if they have never seen, touched, or used a floppy disc IRL. A 15 year old born in 2010 knows what the ‘save’ icon is. My nearly 70 year old mother knows what the ‘share’ curly arrow icon means.

They’re not arbitrary at this point - they’re standard.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#147

Post by wolpoli »

alextingle wrote: post #140
Timwi wrote: post #89

> Hey, unless you can articulate a really good reason to add this, maybe our default posture should be no icons in menus? Challenge accepted. If a user (esp. one whose cognition generally prefers visual media) uses a menu item frequently, they can remember its icon and that makes it easier to find in the future. (Doesn't apply to me personally though because I'll instead remember the underlined letter and press it ne…

Flat, monochrome icons might look nice, but they are only useful if used sparingly. If you're going to use many icons, then they need to be visually distinctive. That means ditching the flat designs, and embracing colour again.

Color icons needs to done twice - once for light mode and again for dark mode.

It is the reason for removing colors and shadings from all icons.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#148

Post by antonvs »

antonvs wrote: post #144
DonHopkins wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a fan of de-emphasizing your agency with the passive voice, then you can say "less could be cared for by me" or just "less could be cared for" if you totally want to totally avoid responsibility for not caring. I loved MrHeather's comment (who worked with Weird Al to animate Word Crimes): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823632 MrHeather on April 9, 2020 | parent | next [–] When I first met with Al ab…

As an immigrant to the US, I'm a fan of recognizing that there are cultures different from my own. But sometimes, when encountering unthinking US bigotry, it can be difficult to keep that in mind. Have you ever traveled outside the US? I don't just mean to CS conferences, I mean really traveling.

Addendum: "I could care less" is a perfectly natural and recognizable idiom in some circles. To someone unfamiliar, it can seem strange, but that's true of many idioms.

The objections to it, though, fall broadly into two categories: ignorance, and bigotry. The former becomes the latter when someone refuses to recognize their ignorance, and doubles down on it.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#149

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #143

Pictograms in the interface are not decoration. Their purpose is to convey information in limited space. (The information should be that could be conveyed this way.) Currently they are often used as decorations or these two uses are mixed up. This is a mistake. (It is interesting and saddening to see how years of UI research just went down the drain after Apple "resurrection". In my impression Apple was the first tha…

So the rule of thumb is that: if the pictogram is always same, then as in Shannon's model, it conveys no information, and thus is decorative. Discard it.

One of first programs that put pictograms in menus was Microsoft Word. But the way Word did it was entirely different from what we do now. Microsoft Word had toolbars and their buttons, of course, were mostly pictorial. Toolbars could be turned on and off and users could assemble their own toolbars. Microsoft Word's menus displayed pictograms only for the commands that could also be called with currently visible toolbars. Have a toolbar visible? Its pictograms will appear in the menu. Closed that toolbar? The pictograms disappeared. The pictogram did not merely decorate a command, but also provided a hint that the user could call the command with a toolbar. This is informational. This is the right use.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#150

Post by matusp »

crazygringo wrote: post #96
netsharc wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But someone got lazy and all the "Delete" or "Add" icons are identical... There's probably a ticket somewhere to "improve the icons" being ignored..

But that's the point. The icons help you find the "delete" section. Icons aren't large enough to then also distinguish between deleting a row or column or table. That's what the label is for. It's not laziness, it's good design.

Agreed, compare that to Quit Safari and Force Quit Safari below. One is X in a square, the other is X in a circle. Very confusing.
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