31–40 of 60 posts
Off-topic question: I see a lot of new posts coming from .cc websites. What is the appeal that .cc provides? Is it that the content is released under Creative Commons? That's not the case here. What kind of messaging or symbolism or underlying meaning one is aiming for when they are going for a .cc domain?
Try sitting someone who has never seen your UI before down in front of it, and try to explain to them how to do something without pointing at the screen, and see how much they struggle if your buttons only have icons.
In the 10+ years I've been running a UI/UX design firm for software companies, I've come to the conclusion that icon design, is not very different from logo design and brand design. A Nike swish logo by itself, without context of the brand we have with it today, is just a random piece of graphic. The pixels itself are worth practically nothing. But because when we see the Nike logo, we feel something (Athleticism, mo…
The play button points at the direction the tape will roll in your cassette player. It had a very practical function once upon a time.
Did these buttons first show up on cassette players? The reel-to-reels I can think of had multi-position switches.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem of using words in an icon is that it only means anything for the people who speak that language.
you're right! The icon i selected was an example, i intended to use the drop like shape, without the word. I now realize it wasn't at all clear. But even without the text it still has some problems, since without context you may think it mean body hydratation level or blood, unless you use colors (yellow, blue and red ) to distinguish between them, but even then, they are not always available/possible and pose access…
The context is for a fitness app.
In the 10+ years I've been running a UI/UX design firm for software companies, I've come to the conclusion that icon design, is not very different from logo design and brand design. A Nike swish logo by itself, without context of the brand we have with it today, is just a random piece of graphic. The pixels itself are worth practically nothing. But because when we see the Nike logo, we feel something (Athleticism, mo…
The play button points at the direction the tape will roll in your cassette player. It had a very practical function once upon a time.
For a very basic and obvious example, possibility to turn right vs turn left signs look different not just because of convention but they resemble the shape of the road.
Since we are on topic, anybody has a suggestion for an icon that represents body fat without representing an overweighted person?
I've started strongly leaning towards the principle that if I have to choose between either an icon or text on a button, I will choose text. Icons are nice landmarks to guide the eye, but they are absolutely worthless to convey information or to find functions that you do not already have muscle memory for. Text is clearer, and the varying word shapes and lengths gives the eye a lot to work with already for locating…
It's unfortunate that many designers these days often jump for hamburgers and heiroglyphs in circumstances where that sacrifice doesn't make sense.
If I could lodge a complaint to all the UI designers: please stop making all the icons look the same in order for them to have the same "style." If I'm looking at a grid of essentially identical white-on-black pictograms with overlapping forms composed entirely of outlines with no variation in thickness or stroke, then you might as well just use actual words at that point.
I really think that icons should be judiciously used, in the event of notification of a serious type. An alert, a warning or an immediate attention to a hazard. Icons have a cognitive overhead of learning it - if we design icons of different styles and artistic expression, they lose their efficiency in cognitive detection. An interface with lots of icons without text (For e.g. SolidWorks, 3DS MAX, Houdini) requires p…
In the 10+ years I've been running a UI/UX design firm for software companies, I've come to the conclusion that icon design, is not very different from logo design and brand design. A Nike swish logo by itself, without context of the brand we have with it today, is just a random piece of graphic. The pixels itself are worth practically nothing. But because when we see the Nike logo, we feel something (Athleticism, mo…