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The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much. Espe

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much. Especially in technology and science. Navigation can make good use of icons. Left, right, up, down, start, stop, these kinds of things can be learned and used widely. Somethings like text manipulation icons, cursors, insertions, selections, can be used effectively, but can be surprisingly hard to explain or even describe. Icons for operations can be really tough. Right now as I look at my computer I can see a library of arcane and archaic imagery. Telephones, disks, pen nibs, VCR controls (navigation, sort of), little boxes with arrows, little boxes overlapping, deadbolt locks, paper airplanes, file folders, fluffy clouds, paperclips, and of course little hamburgers. These can certainly be useful clues, but they also can be very confusing. I've seen paint brushes used to indicate a paint brush in a paint program, but I've also seen the exact same icon used to indicate a screen refresh. Now I'm at as much a loss as anyone to come up with a good substitute, although I will note that I can't imagine any _good_ circumstances when a user needs to be in charge of refreshing the screen. These days I'm using a lot of 3D software, and the user interfaces are a crust of complicated and indecipherable icons. And that's just the top layer of the UI. Almost all of them rely on a text/label system and hot keys for doing much of the work. Discoverability is essentially zero and the only way to get good is to learn the words and the alphabet. Pros end up _hiding_ most of the UI. Sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures. The only one of the icons in the link that make much sense is the one with kcal on it. Unless I dealt, in detail, with these everyday, I'd never remember what the rest stood for. Something like this may make a lot of sense for the people that produce the labels, but I'm unconvinced it does anything good for those who need to _read_ the labels. Word labels in the intended reader's language is almost certainly the best way to go for actual use.

Eric_WVGG 9y ago
A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc2c8ac51d6f0e635943c3dc2.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...
- yoz-y 9y ago
  I feel that the fabric labels are a straw man though. The labels on clothes can be very small. Icons take less place than text and it is trivial to find an explanation of the symbols. Icons have the advantage of being compact. They are accompanied by text when there is place for it, but it can be omitted when there is not. People will have learnt their meaning by then.
  - aisofteng 9y ago
    That's not what a strawman is. GP just have an example to illustrate a point.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  For what it's worth, I've never really needed to read those icons (I only own two categories of clothing: carefree machine washable clothes, and drycleaning clothes); but if I did, a lot of them would make intuitive sense, especially the ones regarding load size, wringing, ironing and iron temperatures, the no-chlorine symbol... Some of them are a bit ambiguous, but it seems like it's a fair trade for the reduction in tag size, and international accessibility.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  The problem here is separating what made ios/android successful and what was merely incidental, or even harmful. eg. Steve jobs was an asshole, but being an asshole doesn't make you Steve Jobs, and maybe being an asshole was not a major part of what he accomplished.
  - k__ 9y ago
    so true. People just pick what they like and try to reproduce success.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Nothing heretical about it. Many of Earth's greatest civilizations used icons and pictograms. They have all either long since moved away from them (Egypt), or sincerely regret ever having thought of them (China). Icons are the easiest, most economical way to do internationalization. That's really the only reason we still use them at all. They were never about making life easy for the user. Some people initially thought they'd help in that respect, but they were wrong.
Fezzik 9y ago
For whatever reason I had the opposite take: after just skimming the article I could quickly identify the icons' corresponding nutritional "unit" on the very bottom chart. I can't say I personally like the aesthetics of the icons, but for a global company trying to make a few nutritional facts universally identifiable, I would say they did a great job. I am still not going to eat there though... Edit: spelling
lomnakkus 9y ago
I don't think it's actually that heretical. Most icons are actually quite culture-specific (i.e. mostly "western") even though we like to think otherwise. A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette -- there are few people these days who have actually physically interacted with a Diskette (of whatever circumference). Another favorite of mine is the "random hand gesture (emot)icon". The conventions for this around the world are, apparently, all over the place(!). Some places a thumbs-up means "great!", and in other places it means "I <did-bad-thing-to> your wife!". (Maybe that's a myth, though.) > Sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures. Definitely. Just to pick a few trivial examples: "solitude", "happiness", "love", "depeche mode". Alright, that last one was two words, but it was a single "token" in our common language. EDIT: Just as a side note: This is really fascinating stuff! It's really hard to tease apart what is "cultural" (i.e. local tribe) vs. what is "hardwired" (i.e. "genetics").
- asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y ago
  > A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette The biggest problem with the save icon is that some designers have decided to use the large down arrow (which is used by browsers for download) instead of save. Thereby throughly confusing users.
- RugnirViking 9y ago
  But just because the save icon was bad _when it was made_ doesn't mean you shouldn't use it now. It's part of a universal design language, and trying to pivot to literally any other icon will be fraught with confusion and trouble. It no longer represents a floppy disk but in most people's minds it is a 'save' in and of itself
Natsu 9y ago
You're right, of course, but I think that if McDonalds let others use them, they'd have a good chance of becoming well-known within a generation, just like some of the old VCR icons are today due to use in myriad music players, video players, etc.

Eric_WVGG 9y ago

A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc2c8ac51d6f0e635943c3dc2.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...

yoz-y 9y ago
I feel that the fabric labels are a straw man though. The labels on clothes can be very small. Icons take less place than text and it is trivial to find an explanation of the symbols. Icons have the advantage of being compact. They are accompanied by text when there is place for it, but it can be omitted when there is not. People will have learnt their meaning by then.
- aisofteng 9y ago
  That's not what a strawman is. GP just have an example to illustrate a point.
microcolonel 9y ago
For what it's worth, I've never really needed to read those icons (I only own two categories of clothing: carefree machine washable clothes, and drycleaning clothes); but if I did, a lot of them would make intuitive sense, especially the ones regarding load size, wringing, ironing and iron temperatures, the no-chlorine symbol... Some of them are a bit ambiguous, but it seems like it's a fair trade for the reduction in tag size, and international accessibility.
throwaway2048 9y ago
The problem here is separating what made ios/android successful and what was merely incidental, or even harmful. eg. Steve jobs was an asshole, but being an asshole doesn't make you Steve Jobs, and maybe being an asshole was not a major part of what he accomplished.
- k__ 9y ago
  so true. People just pick what they like and try to reproduce success.
CamperBob2 9y ago
Nothing heretical about it. Many of Earth's greatest civilizations used icons and pictograms. They have all either long since moved away from them (Egypt), or sincerely regret ever having thought of them (China). Icons are the easiest, most economical way to do internationalization. That's really the only reason we still use them at all. They were never about making life easy for the user. Some people initially thought they'd help in that respect, but they were wrong.

Fezzik 9y ago

For whatever reason I had the opposite take: after just skimming the article I could quickly identify the icons' corresponding nutritional "unit" on the very bottom chart. I can't say I personally like the aesthetics of the icons, but for a global company trying to make a few nutritional facts universally identifiable, I would say they did a great job. I am still not going to eat there though... Edit: spelling

lomnakkus 9y ago

I don't think it's actually that heretical. Most icons are actually quite culture-specific (i.e. mostly "western") even though we like to think otherwise. A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette -- there are few people these days who have actually physically interacted with a Diskette (of whatever circumference). Another favorite of mine is the "random hand gesture (emot)icon". The conventions for this around the world are, apparently, all over the place(!). Some places a thumbs-up means "great!", and in other places it means "I <did-bad-thing-to> your wife!". (Maybe that's a myth, though.) > Sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures. Definitely. Just to pick a few trivial examples: "solitude", "happiness", "love", "depeche mode". Alright, that last one was two words, but it was a single "token" in our common language. EDIT: Just as a side note: This is really fascinating stuff! It's really hard to tease apart what is "cultural" (i.e. local tribe) vs. what is "hardwired" (i.e. "genetics").

asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y ago
> A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette The biggest problem with the save icon is that some designers have decided to use the large down arrow (which is used by browsers for download) instead of save. Thereby throughly confusing users.
RugnirViking 9y ago
But just because the save icon was bad _when it was made_ doesn't mean you shouldn't use it now. It's part of a universal design language, and trying to pivot to literally any other icon will be fraught with confusion and trouble. It no longer represents a floppy disk but in most people's minds it is a 'save' in and of itself

Natsu 9y ago

You're right, of course, but I think that if McDonalds let others use them, they'd have a good chance of becoming well-known within a generation, just like some of the old VCR icons are today due to use in myriad music players, video players, etc.