4 ms·

I'm not usually an advocate of icons, but in that case, an icon of a cart would still be preferable. "Korb" looks like I can buy a basket and "Wagen" alone usua

I'm not usually an advocate of icons, but in that case, an icon of a cart would still be preferable. "Korb" looks like I can buy a basket and "Wagen" alone usually means car. These meanings may not even make sense in the specific context, but with Kruger's Fact of Life #1 in mind ("We don’t read pages. We scan them."), the first connotation is actually what matters.

anoncake 8y ago
> I'm not usually an advocate of icons, but in that case, an icon of a cart would still be preferable. I think on most shopping sites, the cart button has both an icon and a label anyway. > These meanings may not even make sense in the specific context, but with Kruger's Fact of Life #1 in mind ("We don’t read pages. We scan them."), the first connotation is actually what matters. The first connotation depends on the context though. If you add an icon to the cart button and put it in the top right corner where people expect it, I predict that people may find it harder to identify the correct meaning than if you used "Einkaufswagen" or "Warenkorb", but only minimally.
- zrobotics 8y ago
  But, in english, "Car" would be a valid (if useless) abbreviation of "Cart". Seeing "Car" next to a cart icon would be just as confusing, which is why abbreviations that are valid, common word are typically avoided. Sure, people will likely figure it out, but it will look strange, since their first thought on seeing "Wagen" will be "Why is there a car button? WTF is this for?" before eventually deducing that it is the shopping cart. To be fair, German is just a hard language to abbreviate, the compound words really tend to work against this. I'm not a linguist, but I've always wondered if the word length is one of the reasons English has borrowed so few German words relative to the romance languages.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    But "Wagen" does not mean car. It's meaning is closer to "wheeled vehicle that is not a bike". It's a hyponym to both "Auto"/car and "Einkaufswagen"/shopping cart. The Google Images results for "Wagen"[1] illustrate that "car" is by far not the primary meaning. [1] https://i.imgur.com/iPQcD3B.png https://i.imgur.com/iPQcD3B.png
anotheryou 8y ago
I'm a strong advocate of no icon without a label. (unless it's an app people use at least once a day, than I might give you a pass for the main menu)
- currysausage 8y ago
  In my experience watching regular (not even necessarily elderly) people use web sites and apps, the "hamburger" menu icon is practically never understood. Even the "X" (close) icon is often overlooked, particularly if the lines are very thin (in accordance with current aesthetics): "So why don't you search for shoes now?" - "There's something blocking the page, so I'm waiting for it to disappear." (It was one of these obnoxious "Please sign up for our newsletter" modals.) I am increasingly convinced that the only icons that are more or less universally understood are Rewind, Play, Pause, and Forward (within appropriate context). The question is, though: Unless the specific icon is reasonably well-understood or visually striking, why would you even add an icon when you already have the label? It's just more noise for the visual system to parse. My original point, however, was that if you can't use more space for your German translation than the English word "cart" takes up, I would still rather understand the cart icon than the mentioned abbreviations. (Obviously, it would be preferable to solve the underlying issue of a fixed layout.)
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    I like icons for visual hierarchy and fast recognition of known functions. only very low key ui actions like edit I tend to keep without them. I totally agree about the hamburger and (not just) old people. Just the other day I had to decide between two proposals with and without icons and clearly voted for the one with icons.

anoncake 8y ago

> I'm not usually an advocate of icons, but in that case, an icon of a cart would still be preferable. I think on most shopping sites, the cart button has both an icon and a label anyway. > These meanings may not even make sense in the specific context, but with Kruger's Fact of Life #1 in mind ("We don’t read pages. We scan them."), the first connotation is actually what matters. The first connotation depends on the context though. If you add an icon to the cart button and put it in the top right corner where people expect it, I predict that people may find it harder to identify the correct meaning than if you used "Einkaufswagen" or "Warenkorb", but only minimally.

zrobotics 8y ago
But, in english, "Car" would be a valid (if useless) abbreviation of "Cart". Seeing "Car" next to a cart icon would be just as confusing, which is why abbreviations that are valid, common word are typically avoided. Sure, people will likely figure it out, but it will look strange, since their first thought on seeing "Wagen" will be "Why is there a car button? WTF is this for?" before eventually deducing that it is the shopping cart. To be fair, German is just a hard language to abbreviate, the compound words really tend to work against this. I'm not a linguist, but I've always wondered if the word length is one of the reasons English has borrowed so few German words relative to the romance languages.
- anoncake 8y ago
  But "Wagen" does not mean car. It's meaning is closer to "wheeled vehicle that is not a bike". It's a hyponym to both "Auto"/car and "Einkaufswagen"/shopping cart. The Google Images results for "Wagen"[1] illustrate that "car" is by far not the primary meaning. [1] https://i.imgur.com/iPQcD3B.png https://i.imgur.com/iPQcD3B.png

anotheryou 8y ago

I'm a strong advocate of no icon without a label. (unless it's an app people use at least once a day, than I might give you a pass for the main menu)

currysausage 8y ago
In my experience watching regular (not even necessarily elderly) people use web sites and apps, the "hamburger" menu icon is practically never understood. Even the "X" (close) icon is often overlooked, particularly if the lines are very thin (in accordance with current aesthetics): "So why don't you search for shoes now?" - "There's something blocking the page, so I'm waiting for it to disappear." (It was one of these obnoxious "Please sign up for our newsletter" modals.) I am increasingly convinced that the only icons that are more or less universally understood are Rewind, Play, Pause, and Forward (within appropriate context). The question is, though: Unless the specific icon is reasonably well-understood or visually striking, why would you even add an icon when you already have the label? It's just more noise for the visual system to parse. My original point, however, was that if you can't use more space for your German translation than the English word "cart" takes up, I would still rather understand the cart icon than the mentioned abbreviations. (Obviously, it would be preferable to solve the underlying issue of a fixed layout.)
- anotheryou 8y ago
  I like icons for visual hierarchy and fast recognition of known functions. only very low key ui actions like edit I tend to keep without them. I totally agree about the hamburger and (not just) old people. Just the other day I had to decide between two proposals with and without icons and clearly voted for the one with icons.