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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

#281

Post by Levitz »

rayiner wrote: post #258
20k wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pictograms let you parse a lot of information at a glance, because you can pattern match a group of differing symbols much faster than you can a block of text which all looks uniform. It lets you skip reading all the text when you're familiar with a dialogue, and you can short circuit what you need to click on without having to read That's the reason why pictographic additions are so useful. Its the reason why we dis…

> Pictograms let you parse a lot of information at a glance, because you can pattern match a group of differing symbols much faster than you can a block of text which all looks uniform No you can’t.

I'd disagree but either way throw another factor in: non-native speakers and cross-language usability.

If your software is in some language and you are looking at docs or a videotutorial or something in another language, it's often hard to translate specific terms, Icons don't change language. They also help if you have to do something in another machine that uses a different language for some reason.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#282

Post by eldaisfish »

wolpoli wrote: post #147
alextingle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Think about what was lost in the quest for dark mode versus the benefits.

I would argue that menu icons are more useful than dark mode in several situations.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#283

Post by JeremyNT »

eviks wrote: post #158
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…

> Their purpose is to convey information in limited space. No, that's only one of their purposes. Another one is faster visual parsing of shape recognition instead of reading even if space is not an issue (just like with all of these menus, they waste so much space on padding they could fit command names 3 more times)

Yes, and as much as I hate to defend modern UI designers, I believe the icons in the menus here are actually extremely helpful (even when duplicated).

In the first example, when I want to find the option to add or delete a row in this massive menu, the icons clearly convey the purpose. I can instantly filter a huge list of possibilities down to a few relevant entries.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#284

Post by stronglikedan »

dmayle wrote: post #125
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…

I used to manage a team working on the news feed at Facebook (main page). We did extensive experimentation, and later user studies to find out that there are roughly three classes of people: 1) Those that use interface items with text 2) Those that use interface items with icons 3) Those that use interface items with both text and icons. I forget details on the user research, but the mental model I walked away with t…

> Those that use interface items with icons

This is the bane of my existence since icons aren't standardized* and the vast majority of people suck at designing intuitive ones. (*there are ISO standard symbols but most designers are too "good" to use them)

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#285

Post by [deleted] »

nticompass wrote: post #265

I don't understand why removing menu icons is a good thing. Firefox did it and I absolutely hate the change: https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2021/06/content-design-considera... I actually use Zen browser and thankfully someone made a "mod" to bring them back: https://github.com/SivanTechDev/zen-themes/tree/main/BringBa... Maybe it's just me, but the icons are NOT noise or a distraction, they actually make it quicker and…

[deleted]

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#286

Post by illiac786 »

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…

> the motto is: do not make it original, make it right.)

Agreed. It just doesn’t sell.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#287

Post by Y_Y »

thiht wrote: post #174
Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> thus is decorative. Discard it. Or keep it since decoration makes interfaces feel more alive. Not everything NEEDS to be useful

You remind me of my favourite bit of Windows software ever[0]. It made the desktop feel really alive with things like can-can girls and humanoid fish flying around your "living wallpaper".

Then again it was named Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time, so maybe it's not such a good idea for the default environment of a general-purpose operating system.

[0] https://www.mobygames.com/game/1975/monty-pythons-complete-w...

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#288

Post by ndespres »

omnimus wrote: post #141
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…

Others have brought up the Office 97 style for good reason. Everything has an icon, on an icon toolbar. Every command can also be on a file menu but most of them there don’t have an icon. The ones that do are special or intended to draw your attention.

And there’s a consistent metaphor: for example the web browser is represented by a globe for the world wide web. So the “hyperlink” function is a globe with a chain. This the “preview as web page” is a globe with a magnifying glass (whereas the print preview command is a sheet of paper with a magnifying glass.).

This icon language hints at function through its form and helps serve as a cue, a reminder, or a visual representation of its function.

And it all worked on 640x480 256 color screens. They are thoughtful and useful. These plain flat uninformative icons are just rude.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#289

Post by ndespres »

mikepurvis wrote: post #95
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…

Almost 30 years ago MS Office 97 was putting toolbar icons in their menus, and I think it served the useful function of helping users discover when functionality was available another way.

Those icons were well-designed for the newly computerized office employee of the day. The new school of icons are made by graphic designers for other graphic designers.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#290

Post by matty22 »

thunderbong wrote: post #278

In most elevators around the world, there are buttons to keep the doors open and also to get them to close. I've only seen symbols on them. Once, however, in the US, one gentleman got in, and instead of pressing the close button, pressed on the open button. So the doors, which were just going to close, opened again. He complained - Why do they have these symbols, why can't they they just write Open and Close? I've wo…

Call me crazy, but those icons are not different enough to be quickly readable. If the open and close icons on the elevator were distinct from one another words wouldn't be necessary, but the exact same icons rotated 180 degrees are indeciperable at a glance.

It takes noticeable processing time to know which is which. Especially with a button that you need to hit as quickly as possible to hold the door for someone, those icons should be widely different from one another. I can't count the number of times I've meant to hit the open button to hold the elevator for someone only to accidentally hit the close button just in time to make eye contact with the person we've left behind.

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