9 ms·

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

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.
- prewett 9y ago
  I have never met a Chinese person who regretted the creation of the characters. Rather the opposite... In fact, the characters tended to go phonetic, and every time, the Chinese pushed them back to representing concepts, because that was the only way for the Emperor to communicate within his vast empire of mutually unintelligible dialects. I'm not sure I would call them either icons or pictograms, though. Some are pictograms, but some are sort of phonetic (category radical + "sounds similar to this other character"), and most are derived in other fashions. Certainly the simplicity of icons is missing. (But for that matter, the original topic of icons, Christian saints, is missing in all icons. The original icons didn't even express concepts, they expressed people...)
usaphp 9y ago
Your fabric icons example may seem diffficult to get at first, but once you read what each of this icons represent it's pretty easy to remember that next time
- vacri 9y ago
  It's exactly the same with letters. There's nothing particularly evocative about the English 'a' in the glyph for it. Even the arrows the OP mentions is learned association.
  - shawnz 9y ago
    It's not exactly the same. The icons are mnemonics which are mostly useful when you understand what they are trying to represent. Words on the other hand are totally useless if you don't speak the language they're in. It would be very difficult to memorize a word just by its appearance in comparison to an icon.
    - vacri 9y ago
      There's all sorts of words I can recognise in other languages, despite not speaking them. French, German, Italian, Spanish; all these have more than a handful of words that most fairly literate native English speakers can recognise, even excluding the loan words. We learn them from exposure and association, just like with icons. Likewise, words are not totally useless if you don't speak the language. I don't speak any of the above languages, but I can still make basic comments like oui/non, ja/nein, etc.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
The only people who feel it's heretical are designers with too little experience. Very few people would insist these icons were good design: http://i.imgur.com/W6pWibe.png http://i.imgur.com/W6pWibe.png Unlabeled icons are an antipattern in all but a handful of cases.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  What you saw isn't actually bad, because - unlike the current icon storm on mobile - each icon on that screenshot has a tooltip. Hovering a mouse over a button and waiting for a tooltip is one of the most basic computer use skills. And if you have that, then icons suddenly have a better value proposition. Not that I personally like icons. I feel I can pattern-match a word faster than I can pattern-match an icon.
mirimir 9y ago
Neal Stephenson has a funny take on them in Anathem.

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.

prewett 9y ago
I have never met a Chinese person who regretted the creation of the characters. Rather the opposite... In fact, the characters tended to go phonetic, and every time, the Chinese pushed them back to representing concepts, because that was the only way for the Emperor to communicate within his vast empire of mutually unintelligible dialects. I'm not sure I would call them either icons or pictograms, though. Some are pictograms, but some are sort of phonetic (category radical + "sounds similar to this other character"), and most are derived in other fashions. Certainly the simplicity of icons is missing. (But for that matter, the original topic of icons, Christian saints, is missing in all icons. The original icons didn't even express concepts, they expressed people...)

usaphp 9y ago

Your fabric icons example may seem diffficult to get at first, but once you read what each of this icons represent it's pretty easy to remember that next time

vacri 9y ago
It's exactly the same with letters. There's nothing particularly evocative about the English 'a' in the glyph for it. Even the arrows the OP mentions is learned association.
- shawnz 9y ago
  It's not exactly the same. The icons are mnemonics which are mostly useful when you understand what they are trying to represent. Words on the other hand are totally useless if you don't speak the language they're in. It would be very difficult to memorize a word just by its appearance in comparison to an icon.
  - vacri 9y ago
    There's all sorts of words I can recognise in other languages, despite not speaking them. French, German, Italian, Spanish; all these have more than a handful of words that most fairly literate native English speakers can recognise, even excluding the loan words. We learn them from exposure and association, just like with icons. Likewise, words are not totally useless if you don't speak the language. I don't speak any of the above languages, but I can still make basic comments like oui/non, ja/nein, etc.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

The only people who feel it's heretical are designers with too little experience. Very few people would insist these icons were good design: http://i.imgur.com/W6pWibe.png http://i.imgur.com/W6pWibe.png Unlabeled icons are an antipattern in all but a handful of cases.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 9y ago
What you saw isn't actually bad, because - unlike the current icon storm on mobile - each icon on that screenshot has a tooltip. Hovering a mouse over a button and waiting for a tooltip is one of the most basic computer use skills. And if you have that, then icons suddenly have a better value proposition. Not that I personally like icons. I feel I can pattern-match a word faster than I can pattern-match an icon.

mirimir 9y ago

Neal Stephenson has a funny take on them in Anathem.