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I think this article misses a couple important points when it comes to UI AND UX. I'd argue that an important element of UI is discoverability. Yes, a "A box w

I think this article misses a couple important points when it comes to UI AND UX. I'd argue that an important element of UI is discoverability. Yes, a "A box with downward arrow" is not in and of itself enlightening about what it does. By looking at that icon I am not sure what it does. However, I can discover what it does in very few actions. Clicking on it results in selecting all the emails on the page, and the box changes to checked. Clicking the down icon results in a selection menu with "All", "None", "Read", "Unread" and "Starred"[0]. Clicking on one of those items selects only those items. Given that interaction, can anyone here say they still don't understand what it does? My one criticism is that selecting something like "stared" doesn't filter down to only those items too, so you can now select things that aren't on the page of items you're currently seeing. Apple's original iOS did not convey a sense of "immediate understanding" that this article demands, but rather focused on discoverability. That is the same mentality that went into make this UI/UX. My point is you can't judge one without the other. Removing all animations from the original iOS would have come close to ruining it. Showing a picture of a Google UI, and criticizing it without allowing it the benefit of discoverability is tantamount to the same lack of context as removing those animations. Also, following this posts advice: > Luckily, this menu can be switched to text labels in Settings. And changing to text button labels[1] doesn't even change that first icon[2], so I'm not sure that post is really for any other purpose than creating material for some echo chamber. [0] https://i.imgur.com/D8CogSS.png https://i.imgur.com/D8CogSS.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/jOaTKDs.png https://i.imgur.com/jOaTKDs.png [2] https://i.imgur.com/tkhSoom.png https://i.imgur.com/tkhSoom.png

Ajedi32 8y ago
Another thing is that once you _do_ discover what an icon means, it only takes a few repetitions before you start to remember. I don't even use Gmail anymore (I've completely switched over to Inbox) but when I opened that article the first thing I did was "read" all the icons on the page. The only ones I had trouble with were "Mark as Read" and "Move to Folder", but even those only took a couple seconds of thought for me to comprehend.
- hawski 8y ago
  I would probably mostly remember the relative position of the button. So next time when they would add something in-between I would click the third from the left and would be surprised that something else happened. I have it the same even with labels, truth to be told. I hate that nowadays Google seems to shuffle All, Images, Videos, News around, because I learned that Images are always the second one and then it opens Videos on full moon and News on Wednesday. Now I have to always parse before I tap/click.
- V-2 8y ago
  "I don't even use Gmail anymore (I've completely switched over to Inbox) but when I opened that article the first thing I did was "read" all the icons on the page." Well, Inbox shares quite a few of these obscure icons (like the "stop sign with exclamation mark" icon for spam), only they captioned them. So as an Inbox user you've basically seen the cheat sheet quite a few times. This sort of invalidates your test imho.
Jasper_ 8y ago
I'm afraid to click buttons in mobile apps and web pages now. At one point, there was a standardized method, known as "Undo", to assure the user that the changes they're making can be reverted, but at some point along the way we ditched that concept. It's especially worse on mobile where tooltips don't exist, and I have to just have to tap randomly on an icon that looks vaguely like what I want, and pray that I'm doing the right thing. If I'm lucky, there will be a limited-time Undo button after doing the action (GMail has this on some actions but not others!), but if I hesitate too long or accidentally click on anything but it, it goes away permanently. I'm sure I've lost some important email to the depth of time because of a few fatfinger mistaps.
- mattmcknight 8y ago
  The other thing missing in mobile is the hover event which would bring up a tooltip. Maybe future advanced screens will recognize a literal hover over the button as a trigger for a tooltip, or we'll get an annotate mode for the icons.
  - cpu 8y ago
    Sometimes you get lucky and the tooltip works on Android (tap and hold), but in my experience not terribly many apps support this.
  - systoll 8y ago
    I feel like 3D touch is all the hardware you need... it just isn't used that way. A 'peek' already provides a preview of an item -- it just isn't used for action buttons. 'Peeking' into the name and description of an icon would be a fairly straightforward extension of the idea. It just... isn't used that way.
- baddox 8y ago
  How common was undo really? I don't remember undo functionality being anywhere except in content editor applications like word processors, and that's still the case today.
  - 8y ago
reaperducer 8y ago
>I'd argue that an important element of UI is discoverability The whole point of icons is that you don't need to "discover" what they do. They're supposed to be intuitive. To me an arrow pointing down means "download," not "select all." If you can't convey your meaning inside a 16x16px monochrome block, then perhaps that's not the best choice for the task at hand. Time to innovate. Also, Google's choice to deviate from every other mobile menu icon on the planet (the hamburger menu) is a sign of hubris, not an effort to help the customer.
- zlynx 8y ago
  No icon anywhere is intuitive. They're all learned. Once you've hovered over the icon and learned its meaning then you can recognize it by the picture.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    You can't hover over icons on mobile.
    - diaz 8y ago
      I still remember once upon a time ome could long press icons/buttons and the hover text would appear. But oh well, it seems we are too far ahead in the future now.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    > No icon anywhere is intuitive. They're all learned. Absolutely not true. The word "icon" originated with religious artwork and was used to tell stories to the people at a time when 99% of the population was illiterate. Governments spend millions of dollars on research to design important icons that will be completely intuitive for hundreds or thousands of years. Things like the radioactive trefoil, or the biohazard sign. (Google it, there's lots of articles about this.) Nobody wants to tell some future human, "Oh, sorry you sank into a 4,000-year-old pool of radioactive sludge and died. You should have "learned" it was dangerous ahead of time. At least you "discovered" what it means, now that you're dead."
genezeta 8y ago
"A box with a downward arrow" refers to the icon immediately before the "stop sign with an exclamation point", not to the one you're talking about.

Ajedi32 8y ago

Another thing is that once you _do_ discover what an icon means, it only takes a few repetitions before you start to remember. I don't even use Gmail anymore (I've completely switched over to Inbox) but when I opened that article the first thing I did was "read" all the icons on the page. The only ones I had trouble with were "Mark as Read" and "Move to Folder", but even those only took a couple seconds of thought for me to comprehend.

hawski 8y ago
I would probably mostly remember the relative position of the button. So next time when they would add something in-between I would click the third from the left and would be surprised that something else happened. I have it the same even with labels, truth to be told. I hate that nowadays Google seems to shuffle All, Images, Videos, News around, because I learned that Images are always the second one and then it opens Videos on full moon and News on Wednesday. Now I have to always parse before I tap/click.
V-2 8y ago
"I don't even use Gmail anymore (I've completely switched over to Inbox) but when I opened that article the first thing I did was "read" all the icons on the page." Well, Inbox shares quite a few of these obscure icons (like the "stop sign with exclamation mark" icon for spam), only they captioned them. So as an Inbox user you've basically seen the cheat sheet quite a few times. This sort of invalidates your test imho.

Jasper_ 8y ago

I'm afraid to click buttons in mobile apps and web pages now. At one point, there was a standardized method, known as "Undo", to assure the user that the changes they're making can be reverted, but at some point along the way we ditched that concept. It's especially worse on mobile where tooltips don't exist, and I have to just have to tap randomly on an icon that looks vaguely like what I want, and pray that I'm doing the right thing. If I'm lucky, there will be a limited-time Undo button after doing the action (GMail has this on some actions but not others!), but if I hesitate too long or accidentally click on anything but it, it goes away permanently. I'm sure I've lost some important email to the depth of time because of a few fatfinger mistaps.

mattmcknight 8y ago
The other thing missing in mobile is the hover event which would bring up a tooltip. Maybe future advanced screens will recognize a literal hover over the button as a trigger for a tooltip, or we'll get an annotate mode for the icons.
- cpu 8y ago
  Sometimes you get lucky and the tooltip works on Android (tap and hold), but in my experience not terribly many apps support this.
- systoll 8y ago
  I feel like 3D touch is all the hardware you need... it just isn't used that way. A 'peek' already provides a preview of an item -- it just isn't used for action buttons. 'Peeking' into the name and description of an icon would be a fairly straightforward extension of the idea. It just... isn't used that way.
baddox 8y ago
How common was undo really? I don't remember undo functionality being anywhere except in content editor applications like word processors, and that's still the case today.
- 8y ago

reaperducer 8y ago

>I'd argue that an important element of UI is discoverability The whole point of icons is that you don't need to "discover" what they do. They're supposed to be intuitive. To me an arrow pointing down means "download," not "select all." If you can't convey your meaning inside a 16x16px monochrome block, then perhaps that's not the best choice for the task at hand. Time to innovate. Also, Google's choice to deviate from every other mobile menu icon on the planet (the hamburger menu) is a sign of hubris, not an effort to help the customer.

zlynx 8y ago
No icon anywhere is intuitive. They're all learned. Once you've hovered over the icon and learned its meaning then you can recognize it by the picture.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  You can't hover over icons on mobile.
  - diaz 8y ago
    I still remember once upon a time ome could long press icons/buttons and the hover text would appear. But oh well, it seems we are too far ahead in the future now.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  > No icon anywhere is intuitive. They're all learned. Absolutely not true. The word "icon" originated with religious artwork and was used to tell stories to the people at a time when 99% of the population was illiterate. Governments spend millions of dollars on research to design important icons that will be completely intuitive for hundreds or thousands of years. Things like the radioactive trefoil, or the biohazard sign. (Google it, there's lots of articles about this.) Nobody wants to tell some future human, "Oh, sorry you sank into a 4,000-year-old pool of radioactive sludge and died. You should have "learned" it was dangerous ahead of time. At least you "discovered" what it means, now that you're dead."

genezeta 8y ago

"A box with a downward arrow" refers to the icon immediately before the "stop sign with an exclamation point", not to the one you're talking about.