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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

#311

Post by kldg »

JeremyNT wrote: post #283
eviks wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

yes; I think it depends a lot on how accepted the icon is. Every few months when I have to open ST's CubeProgrammer, my brain substantially deteriorates because they don't use text and the icons for their main tabs are not always understandable to me. (and the thing's otherwise a relic from 20+ years ago)

X, volume & mute icon, disk icon, upload/download icon -- these are all fine and good; you don't need to spell those out for me because their use is so widespread that even if I didn't know what they meant, it'd be very useful to learn. I have no idea what a generic "integrated circuit" icon means, though, and I doubt anyone will use it elsewhere to mean the same thing, so I just click around randomly until I find what I'm looking for, like I'd do with the previously-unlabeled 6-switch panel in my living room where the positioning of the switches have no obvious relation to the physical placement of the ceiling lights.

I think Apple's menu actually shows exactly what I want and expect; show icons if it'll help me, don't show them if they wouldn't; though in come cases, I think Apple could apply some more icons (like for "Stop", there are a few good choices for that).

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#313

Post by [deleted] »

ACCount37 wrote: post #223
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…

This. If I'm out looking for a "Save" button, I'm going to pattern match "ancient disk icon" without even thinking about it. It's also the reason why some menu entries get icons and others don't. If the icon doesn't convey information by itself (like a "move to top" icon example), then it's there as a visual anchor - and you don't really need to have 4 of the same "delete" icon if a menu has 4 different "delete" opti…

[deleted]

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#314

Post by c-linkage »

mrcino wrote: post #293

The UI/UX design is not about standards and guidelines but about what the manager currently likes. There is no discipline because senior managers don't care until Excel cells turn red. Steve Jobs was forcing design discipline across Apple products with furious determination because he actually cared. That's how it ends, everything becomes an unmanageable, constantly changing mess because every manager likes something…

The Mythical Man-Month calls for a single person to be responsible for the design of a system. Steve Jobs was that guy for Apple. But once he left, there was no one strong enough to define the system across the whole company.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#315

Post by specialist »

stronglikedan wrote: post #284
dmayle wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Cite cliché about the only intuitive user interface is the nipple; everything else is learned.

Having done my share of UI work, my value system transitioned from esthetics to practicalities. Such as "can you describe it?" Because siloed UI, independent of docs, training and tech supp, is awful.

All validated by usability testing, natch. It's hard to maintain strong opinions UI after users shred your best efforts. Humilitating.

Having said all that... If stock icons work (with target user base), I'm all for using them.

PS I do have one strong opinion: less is more.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#316

Post by scoofy »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #149
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…

The pictogram is there for people who can't read English, to help them get by.

It's the same reason why Ikea's instruction manuals typically have no words.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#317

Post by breppp »

troupo wrote: post #269
breppp wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Then I'd argue that not having icons on every item in the menu, and having groups/separators helps more than just having nearly indistinguishable icons everywhere

maybe, but over use of groups can also be confusing

I find icons helpful to visually anchor things in the menu. It can be noisy when there are 5 identical "paste as" icons but generally I see it as a positive

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#318

Post by remyp »

lloeki wrote: post #198
remyp wrote: post #19

Over the years I've noticed something unusual about myself: I don't even see these icons. My brain goes directly to the text. This applies to all visual material, but is most evident in printed advertising. Apparently other people notice the hot girl and the puppy and the fried chicken sandwich first. Meanwhile, I've already read all the fine print. No idea why I'm like this.

I used to notice and somewhat - but not solely - rely on icons, especially nice designed sets. It seems though that a combination of samey-sameness (greyscale, shape, etc...) and the constant bombarding of attention-grabbing imagery (emoji, gif, ads...) has desensitised me from visual cues and I zero in on text instead now.

I think you're right. Desensitization has to be a big factor.

I'm certain that I just _like_ text, but I've also noticed recently that I miss very large attention-grabbing print (eg. "SALE" or "FREE WIDGETS JUST GIVE US YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS") as well. I think my brain has started flagging it as misleading noise along with the rest of the detritus.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#319

Post by mercury4063 »

sbarre wrote: post #103
quamserena wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this just your belief presented as fact, or do you have some data to back this up? (Not the literacy stat but the fact that illiterate people "figure out how to use tech by memorizing the icons and locations of buttons").

Watch a small child use a computer.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#320

Post by culanuchachamim »

Maybe im a weirdo and maybe I'll get dowvoted... But I only feel gratitude to the UI designers and the digital artists that they only think how to make it better for the user both in terms of creating a communication that uses less symbols per word and a more pleasent view for our eyes.

I also learned here that no matter your intentions and how much good you are going to do,and how many people like it, you always find someone not confortable (with his right point of view).

The fact that millions of users and millions of designers choose this style,for a long period of time now, it means that for most of them it make sense.

(Sometimes millions of users are screw up by bad designs, but usually is for a short period and by a handful of developers).

Things that consume energy and don't help life don't have a long life, that's what we learnt in biology.

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