I’m curious why this is given any thought at all, this seems of trivial importance. Is there nothing else to focus on?
Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
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Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#32I’m curious why this is given any thought at all, this seems of trivial importance. Is there nothing else to focus on?
Icons should make sense, otherwise, why have them? Many people using computers today have never seen a floppy disk and probably never will.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#33Did we ever need a save symbol? I’ve used computers with GUIs for 30 years, and I can’t remember seeing it on many applications at all apart from pre-ribbon Microsoft Office. And now that the trend goes towards everything you do being implicitly saved when you do it, the need for a button with an icon is even smaller.
Yes The icons are as important as the keyboard shortcuts and menu items It costs nothing (except a few pixels) to put a visual reminder on screen of something you "should do" frequently I've watched people only ever copy/paste via right-click Others via the buttons at the top of the window Others via the Edit menu And others using the keyboard shortcuts Why make a product less usable to some people just because you k…
A few pixels is a very big cost when all you have is 640x480 of them. UI clutter affects usability too.
I’ll grant that while Microsoft Office is the only place I can remember seeing save buttons over all those years, for most people throughout the 90s and 00s, Microsoft Office was all they ever used. It might as well have been synonymous with software to them.
I suppose there was a window of time when screens were large enough to support gratuitous toolbars, but before autosave had become the norm, where it may have made sense. But now I’d go as far as to say requiring users to click a button or lose their work to be an anti-pattern.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#34We should keep it. The benefit from switching is miniscule, and the value lost in continuity and recognizability is massive. I'm tired of designers chasing fads.
I agree. Also, what modern icon could be used to replace the floppy disk that would be immediately recognizable as meaning "save this file"? And if it represents a currently-used device, like a USB thumb drive, how long before that one becomes obsolete? And would we end up with each product having a different icon?
Some could argue that even USB sticks are pretty obsolete. Most mere mortals don't really use them anymore, and the only time I use them at home is when I need to boot off an installation .iso or something. They are rarely, if ever, part of my work day.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine if those "designers" suddenly got interested in the Chinese language. - "Hey, why is the character for 'sun' so boxy? The sun is round! Let's make the character a bit rounder! New Unicode position!" - "Oh, but you forgot to remove the line in the middle, I need a new Unicode position for my variant!" - "Wait! In my newly designed font, I just replaced the original one. What do I do with the two new Unicode ch…
Ironically, there have been copious attempts at streamlining Chinese writing, the most successful attempt being simplified Chinese, so this isn't as strong a rebuttal as you'd think
Sure, but such attempts don't try to replace an ideogram because the object of daily life that inspired it is obsolete.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#36As long as you need one, you might as well use the same one. It's arbitrary, but it will always be arbitrary. Icons almost always are, except in rare circumstances where you get lucky.
But as much as possible you should avoid needing one. Saving is an artifact of limited storage and processing. You should instead design a workflow that eliminates the need for saving things. One way is to have a persistent undo stack that is constantly saving -- which has the nice benefit of also being continuously undoable, offers change tracking, and other benefits.
Don't worry about the outdated icon. Worry that the outdated icon represents outdated thinking about what computers are capable of. Computers have changed a lot since the days when we used floppy disks. Use that to your advantage, and get a better product.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#37Rather than change the icon for saving, there are good reasons to think that there should be no save button at all and saving should be automatically done continuously.
Many softwares do that already, computers have the resources to make it seamless, and it just makes sense in most cases.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#38Yes. The floppy disk is an excellent icon, and it's history is distinct, important and easy to convey. Two other icons I could think of without effort are the telephone icon and the camera icon.
Same with the "folders" icon. I bet a very large percentage of the population has never used an actual paper folder.
yes. We should make a page showing all these icons along with pictures of their physical objects and a description of how they worked and what they were used for :)
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#39I’m curious why this is given any thought at all, this seems of trivial importance. Is there nothing else to focus on?
Icons should make sense , otherwise, why have them? Many people using computers today have never seen a floppy disk and probably never will.
I mean fair enough if that's what one wants to spend their time on, but imo, nobody will notice.
Re: Ask HN: Should we accept the “floppy disk icon” as the default save symbol?
#40"Should we accept?" ... How old are you? It's been the symbol literally since forever. There's nothing to accept. And who is this "we" you speak of? What kind of Narcissistic perspective is this?
I think I have never seen a floppy symbol while using my android phones. Also not available in many interface icon collections, like Google Material Icons etc. when I recently wanted to have buttons with icons in an ImGui project.
Many kids growing up with computers today have probably never seen a floppy disk as an icon, web interfaces usually use 'Save Changes' as text. Even desktop tools like Blender don't use it these days. Krita still does, as an example.