I actually think that text has a fairly high information density rate compared to iconography. The perfect example of this is the command line. Power users tend

I actually think that text has a fairly high information density rate compared to iconography. The perfect example of this is the command line. Power users tend to prefer a terminal because it is more concise than clicking around in a gui. I think that the problem lies in the fact that we have very few universal icons, especially for something like a phone interface. This means that while an icon for 'unread mail' would be smaller than the text describing it, no one would know what it meant without a description. Since there is no real limit to the actions we want our phones or computers to perform, text seems to be the way to go. Of course, some actions (e.g. save, cut, paste) have icons that have been in use for so long that it might be fair to call them universal. You can see an example of what I mean in most mac os x applications, where the buttons generally have icons with labels. Disclaimer: I work for microsoft, but nowhere related to the phone team. Edit: My point is more about interfaces than design. I know nothing about typography.