Interesting comment, I totally agree. Eg. For a casual user, very clear highly descriptive medium is best (eg tooltips), for a mid-level user familiar with the

Interesting comment, I totally agree. Eg. For a casual user, very clear highly descriptive medium is best (eg tooltips), for a mid-level user familiar with the program, icons are ideal. For a super-user, they dont need any visual UI and can do everything from memory using keyboard commands or gestures. I think icons are mis-used more frequently by modern designers than text. Perhaps it is a lot easier to mis-use icons beceause their meanings are not standardised or codified. With English text for example, there are dictionaries and official sources for grammar, spelling and meaning. Also people are actively taught these officially accepted values in school. The suite of icons we're discussing (eg. disk icon for 'save' right facing arrow for 'play') have come from a mish mash of different contributors, only in the past few decades and in the tech industry where things have been in constant flux. The same icon can often mean two completely different things, and they can also often be stylized into an unrecognizable or ambiguous form.