The best icon is a text label • Hacker News Board

Re: The best icon is a text label

#41

Post by JFlash » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:04 AM UTC

brenschluss wrote: post #17

> Don’t use an icon if its meaning isn’t a 100% clear to everyone. When in doubt, skip the icon. Reside to simple copy. A text label is always clearer. The article is misguided, in that it assumes that the meaning of an icon only exists in the lines/color/visual form of the icon. Icons are visual language . You have to teach the user what the icon means. Either the user has seen the icon before (such as in airports),…

Great comment. This reasoning is probably intuitive to anyone who's familiar with a logographic writing system.

I feel like you can also draw a parallel with programming languages. Consider:

  def sum1(array)
    sum = 0
    array.each { |e| sum += e }
    sum
  end

  def sum2(array)
    array.reduce(:+)
  end

sum2 isn't just a different way to write the same thing. It's a construct that expresses a specific pattern of evaluation and aggregation. It doesn't describe what it's doing like sum1 does. It's more expressive than that. It's "clearer" once you learn it.

Similarly (at least in the US) green means proceed/go/forward/continue and red means cancel/go back/stop/error. This is something that was learned, not something that was known by instinct.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#42

Post by joshuak » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:07 AM UTC

pool wrote: post #8

For someone who follows HN somewhat, I really don't keep up on any current cool-and-hyped stuff. I'll just see websites become more and more useless with three-stripe icons for menus and then just random mysterious icons, and I'll tell myself that that no doubt these no-context meaningless icons must be derived from whatever iphones are doing this week.

I agree on the more and more useless progress of web interface design. The hamburger icon (three-strip icon as you call it) being particularly egregious, akin to the travesty that is the 'start' button on windows.

However, to be fair, Apple designers are very much against this trend as well (not to defend the recent downturn in Apple UX design).

I recommend this 2014 WWDC talk on UX[1]. The entire talk is worth watching even for non iOS UX design. but it goes into the problems with hamburger menus specifically at 32 minutes.

1: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2014-211/

Re: The best icon is a text label

#43

Post by hn9780470248775 » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:07 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #4

I always laugh when I see that "unclear laundry icons" image, because I recently had the experience of trying to use a combined washer/dryer machine in a foreign country. The icons truly are asinine, you can't even get close to guessing what you want. For fun, I looked it up. Some of the icons are obvious, a few make sense once you know the basics , and still others seem almost sillier once explained. http://www.text…

The standardized laundry icons are way better than the alternative (no standard icons, or verbose text in a potentially foreign language).

Re: The best icon is a text label

#44

Post by pavanred » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:17 AM UTC

I used to flash different ROMs on my HTC Desire frequently a while back. I was experimenting with MIUI ROM and accidentally flashed a Chinese ROM. And, it so happened that I had to travel and I wasn't able to flash an English ROM back for a couple of days. I was surprised that I could manage just fine for a couple of days with a Chinese ROM (I don't know Chinese), I remember thinking about the UX because though I couldn't read the menus, I could manage just fine using the icons, for example a trash can in messages menu is definitely delete message.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#45

Post by true_religion » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:18 AM UTC

lazerwalker wrote: post #21

adevine wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see a pushback against icon-only buttons, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the mobile space is changing so rapidly that things don't have a chance to "settle down" like they did for previous technologies. I mean, I don't think it's inherently obvious that a triangle pointing to the right means play, a square means stop, and a circle means record. However, it didn't take cassette players and VCR…

I feel like the hamburger button is a special example, since the fact that your mobile app has a "here's where we shoved the features we couldn't fit in anywhere else" menu is usually a smell that you have deeper design issues at the information architecture level.

Or you know... it's a symptom of needing a menu.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#46

Post by gburt » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:26 AM UTC

Icons, but not text, can be language agnostic and probably more resilient to cultural variation. Obviously well-recognized icons like arrows fit this property more so than time and culturally dependent things like floppy disks for save buttons.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#47

Post by joblessjunkie » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

brenschluss wrote: post #17

> Don’t use an icon if its meaning isn’t a 100% clear to everyone. When in doubt, skip the icon. Reside to simple copy. A text label is always clearer. The article is misguided, in that it assumes that the meaning of an icon only exists in the lines/color/visual form of the icon. Icons are visual language . You have to teach the user what the icon means. Either the user has seen the icon before (such as in airports),…

> You have to teach the user what the icon means

Who's in charge here? The software works for me, not the other way around.

I don't want to be learning your glorious new UI, I want to be using its essential feature and getting out ASAP.

I understand that for progress to be made, ideas must be explored and risks must be taken.

But leaving out a label is not progress, it's just someone trying to save screen space on a cluttered design, and it doesn't help me.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#48

Post by oblio » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:33 AM UTC

LukeShu wrote: post #23

TillE wrote: post #12

I'd love to see some empirical data, but my intuition is that text + colored icon is the ideal (in terms of how quickly you can find what you want) for both new and experienced users. Every little clue helps navigation, and makes me feel more confident about using an application.

I only have an anecdote, but: I've discovered that I have no ability to differentiate between icons while working. On my own computers, I use WMII, a minimalist tiling window manager; that is: text and no icons. Before that, I'd used "traditional" window managers that showed the icon and program name in the bottom bar (Gnome, Vista, XP, 95). Anyway, at my last job, IT decided that the computer on my desk should run W…

> Anyway, at my last job, IT decided that the computer on my desk should run Windows 7, which only has the icon in the bottom bar.

It's generally a good idea to look through the settings or search on the internet if you don't like something on your PC.

Windows 7/8/8.1/10 all allow using labels and text for the taskbar buttons.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#49

Post by megablast » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:36 AM UTC

Icons can transcend different languages though, a huge boon for small devs.

Re: The best icon is a text label

#50

Post by rpgmaker » Sat, Dec 19, 2015, 1:44 AM UTC

joblessjunkie wrote: post #47

brenschluss wrote: post #17

> Don’t use an icon if its meaning isn’t a 100% clear to everyone. When in doubt, skip the icon. Reside to simple copy. A text label is always clearer. The article is misguided, in that it assumes that the meaning of an icon only exists in the lines/color/visual form of the icon. Icons are visual language . You have to teach the user what the icon means. Either the user has seen the icon before (such as in airports),…

> You have to teach the user what the icon means Who's in charge here? The software works for me, not the other way around. I don't want to be learning your glorious new UI, I want to be using its essential feature and getting out ASAP. I understand that for progress to be made, ideas must be explored and risks must be taken. But leaving out a label is not progress, it's just someone trying to save screen space on a…

It's kind of silly but google changed the "share" button icon in their android youtube app a while ago and I couldn't find the share button for MONTHS even though it was in the same place. That is because the icon now looks like a "reply" icon and I never guessed that now button is used to 'share' something.