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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

#321

Post by Perepiska »

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…

JetBrains products had colorful and useful pictograms on menu items and panels. One day they replaced them by B&W versions and it was fail. Few years later they introduced purple icons. For promoting some internal AI companion.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#322

Post by troupo »

crazygringo wrote: post #303
troupo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's actually really hard and there's a good reason they choose not to. No. No, there's no good reason. Google is institutionally incapable of making good designs. Forget good, they can't make sensible designs. So they whipped out the most generic icon set. Typed "delete" or "add" or "filter" and chose the first icon that popped up for all actions. Top to bottom: - Insert column before. left arrow, column (three st…

You don't need to use language like "moron". It doesn't help the conversation and it's not appropriate. Trying to convince people you are right because you think other people are less intelligent is generally not a strategy that works. And yes, all of the icons you are describing and linked to can be drawn. I even described these types of combinations myself. The point you're missing is that they are nearly impossibl…

> I even described these types of combinations myself.

Not exactly. Re-read what I wrote

> When I look at your first link, I just see a ton of icons that look like variations on a grid.

1. It was just an example, out of potentially thousands of possible variations. And I described a much simpler one

2. You're complaining about "variations of a grid" and at the same time praise how Google uses literally the same icon for completely different actions

> I think you're missing the purpose of menu item icons. They are not too distinguish every single item. That's what the text is for.

So why does Google use an icon for every single item? It's enough to have just a single icon on the first item in the group, the rest will naturally be associated with it.

> They are to help identify either the basic type of verb or the basic type of noun or adjective at a glance. Without having to think about it... even when multiple many items share the same icon if they perform the same action.

Ah yes, you don't have to think about checks notes that "Create filter" and "Apply filter from cell value" are actually completely different actions with completely different modes of operation, that's why they get a single generic filter icon.

> At a glance, you can see that all of the plus icons mean insert something and all of the trashcan icons mean to delete something, and then you look at the text to see what is being inserted or deleted.

Oh, "read text between identical icons and hope you didn't misread the action you needed" is good, but "read text between similar icons if they are not distinct enough" is bad. Got you

> Trying to cram all of that information into a tiny icon

So don't cram it. I literally described the most minimal icons that don't cram much info.

Also, there's literally no "crammin of info" in, say, adding a plus sign to a filter icon to designate "create" and to differentiate it from "apply".

Just a few examples of minimal icons. They are from different packs, so their styles and approaches will be different, these are just to illustrate the idea. Also, as you said, not every menu item needs an icon:

- "insert column": https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/edit-tool_7601880?related... and https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/edit-tool_7601881?related...

- "insert row": https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/row_7043663?related_id=70...

- delete can follow the same principle

- create filter can use the same pattern as this remove filter icon: https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/clear-filter_6134093?rela...

etc. etc.

Google "designers" literally took a generic icon set, searched for terms "insert", "delete", "filter" and chose the first ones that came up in search. That's it. That's the "hard decision" they had to make.

Which is ironic given that they went out of their way to create varied distinct icons for the top-level menu, but not for the context menu. Or that Google Docs (not Sheets) manages to do all that, and use slightly different icons than Sheets (e.g. for Paste Without Formatting)

> Design is full of these kinds of trade-offs.

What Google shows is not a trade-off. It's either incompetence or non-caring, and I don't know which is worse.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#323

Post by VBprogrammer »

emeril wrote: post #299
VBprogrammer wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still regard Office '97 as the best UI it ever had. I spent a lot of time inside it, including a couple of years at a bank reconciling corporate actions before I got my first programming job. The ribbon version was awful in comparison.

2003 was the best/final iteration of it - I still miss old excel new excel is just garbage instead in virtually every way

Yeah, after that they started nuking VBA too. Sad times!

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#324

Post by duxup »

I certainly try to add icons some places assuming it is faster that way.

Having said that most of the time I discover ... there's not a great icon and it's not faster / I just don't.

I find these kinds of decisions pretty dang hard really.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#325

Post by flemhans »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #189
iamcalledrob wrote: post #173

I'm bracing myself for losing ellipses in Apple's menus too. At least based on the trajectory of macOS's design decline. For those who might not be aware, a long-standing design pattern on macOS is for menu item labels to have a "..." at the end when a click will take you somewhere, rather than taking immediate action. So you can click more confidently. It's an example of the subtle quality and attention to detail yo…

I have never known! On my web apps, I _try_ to give buttons that perform an irreversible action a different color, like saving, updating, creating, deleting etc

I use outline buttons for "link" buttons and colored-in ones for those that perform actions.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#326

Post by crazygringo »

troupo wrote: post #322
crazygringo wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to use language like "moron". It doesn't help the conversation and it's not appropriate. Trying to convince people you are right because you think other people are less intelligent is generally not a strategy that works. And yes, all of the icons you are describing and linked to can be drawn. I even described these types of combinations myself. The point you're missing is that they are nearly impossibl…

> I even described these types of combinations myself. Not exactly. Re-read what I wrote > When I look at your first link, I just see a ton of icons that look like variations on a grid. 1. It was just an example, out of potentially thousands of possible variations. And I described a much simpler one 2. You're complaining about "variations of a grid" and at the same time praise how Google uses literally the same icon…

I don't know what to tell you.

You seem pretty convinced that each menu item needs its own unique icon, and it doesn't seem like anything I say is going to lead you to understand why others would see that as overly complex and less helpful.

Good luck with your own UX!

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#327

Post by rerdavies »

sevensor wrote: post #310
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…

So do I want the button with the three horizontal lines, three horizontal dots, three vertical dots, nine dots arranged in a grid, the point-down triangle, or the point-right chevron? Generally these convey no information and I have to try each one to find the option I want. If it exists.

hamburger icon: originally, in older Android UI guidelines, provides access to a list of items that can be used to navigate between parts of a large UI. But at this point, pretty much evolved to mean "click to access a menu" on UIs that don't have a menu bar.

Three vertical dots: "More stuff that doesn't fit on a toolbar because the display on your current device isn't wide enough".

Three horizontal dots: click this item to access a dialog.

Point-down triangle: Select an value from a list.

There may be slight variations depending on the UI guidelines for the platform you are using (or designing for).

All enormously useful icons that provide specific context and meaning. I can't say that I've ever seen a piece of serious software that abuses those conventions.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#328

Post by troupo »

crazygringo wrote: post #326
troupo wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I even described these types of combinations myself. Not exactly. Re-read what I wrote > When I look at your first link, I just see a ton of icons that look like variations on a grid. 1. It was just an example, out of potentially thousands of possible variations. And I described a much simpler one 2. You're complaining about "variations of a grid" and at the same time praise how Google uses literally the same icon…

I don't know what to tell you. You seem pretty convinced that each menu item needs its own unique icon, and it doesn't seem like anything I say is going to lead you to understand why others would see that as overly complex and less helpful. Good luck with your own UX!

> You seem pretty convinced that each menu item needs its own unique icon

Tell me you didn't read what I wrote without telling me that.

Literal quote: "So why does Google use an icon for every single item? It's enough to have just a single icon on the first item in the group, the rest will naturally be associated with it."

The rest of my text is showing how your defense of "let's use a generic icon for completely different actions for every menu item" falls apart even with the tiniest of scrutinies

> it doesn't seem like anything I say is going to lead you to understand why others would see that as overly complex and less helpful.

Literally every menu in every Google Docs is full with unique icons for every menu item except this context menu BTW.

You'd know that if you weren't so hellbent on defending incompetence.

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#329

Post by davegri »

> "Some groupings have icons and get inset, while other groupings don’t have icons and don’t get inset. Interesting…again I wonder what the rationale is here? How do you choose? It’s not clear to me."

The rationale is clear, they are choosing to use icons only when a widely-recognized icon is available. This makes sense, and it answers the author's concerns perfectly about icons being used arbitrarily when they don't convey anything.

To be honest I find the whole motion of this blog post quite confusing. The user starts with a bad example, people using icons randomly that nobody could recognize without the text, which is evidence of the fact that the icon itself doesn't convey much information.

Then he shows an example where someone doesn't do the thing he complained about, they actually did use icons with a rationale. At which point he asks the question, "What is the rationale" but does not actually attempt to answer it..

To me though, there is a much more interesting paradox beneath all this. If we grant that it only makes sense to show an icon when it's meaning is widely known. How are new icons ever going to be introduced? Presumably every well known went through a period where it was used with text because it was still not well known. So while it might be bad UX to use an icon that is unfamiliar to users, over the long term using such icons has the benefit of creating a shared visual language that we all understand. I guess the litmus test for when to put an icon should then become: Is this functionality widespread enough in other applications that I can imagine this icon becoming standard in the future?

Re: Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help

#330

Post by Timwi »

eviks wrote: post #162
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…

How can you remember the underlined "i" when it's so tiny and also positioned in random places? These should be in their own column just like a checkmark or an icon (but yes, no single key navigation is way worse than bad icons)

I like the idea of placing the hotkeys in a column of their own. Nevertheless, even if the underlined i is sometimes hard to notice, I only need to find it until I've memorized it.
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