7 ms·

I've always been a fan of one-word labels instead of icons. If I understand it, the mind does not look closely at every line of every letter but reads it in ou

I've always been a fan of one-word labels instead of icons. If I understand it, the mind does not look closely at every line of every letter but reads it in outline. So a word is not much more cognitive load than an icon. There is no learning curve, as with icons. With icons, the problem is not recognizing what the icon looks like (an envelope!) but what it means within the application (I'm looking at you, GMail). Selfishly, as a developer, text labels are easier than a folder full of image assets. But I don't feel bad about it, because it's better for the user too. DISCLAIMER: These are not absolutes. There are exceptions. The article's tack is reasonable. I'm saying that icons are overused in general.

kurtisc 8y ago
The NHS serves one dialect of one language. If you translate 'menu' into another language, you may need a classifier, an article, a case, a longer word, a non-alphabetic script, changing the reading direction, or more. Scaling this to a website that serves people internationally and needs to have a consistent branding is much harder than using an icon. There is a learning curve, it's just one you climbed when you learned the language (which may not be your own).
- nostoc 8y ago
  If you're building a website for more than one language, you'll need most of these anyway, for the content of the site...
  - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    Exactly, for accessibility you need all icons to have a text replacement, so you can just use that text instead of the icon at no extra translation cost.
- yorwba 8y ago
  The same learning curve applies to icons. If you think you can simply use the same icons in another language, you're going to confuse a lot of users without the shared cultural context. I once overheard a woman on an international flight from Beijing to Moscow explain to her daughter that the "house" icon of the in-flight entertainment system represented the "main page". The whole metaphor falls down as soon as there's no "home" in "home page".
  - jonfw 8y ago
    I never considered this. Metaphors are very difficult to translate because while the primary definition of a word may be easily translatable, that translated word may have slightly different linguisitic properties that make the metaphor a little more abstract. In this example, "Home" in english doesn't always just refer to somebody's primary residence, we also use it as a descriptor or prefix (hometown). In china, the direct translation for "home" probably isn't also used as a descriptor, which means that they aren't used to using "home" in a more figurative sense.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > The NHS serves one dialect of one language. They also do Welsh. https://www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk/default.aspx?locale=cy https://www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk/default.aspx?locale=cy You may find this article, where they talk about using local slang instead of formal words: https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/transformation-blog/2019/pee-and-poo-and-the-language-of-health https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/transformation-blog/2019/pee-and...
  - kurtisc 8y ago
    The Welsh site has different styling
signal11 8y ago
Well designed icons have their place, but a great example, for me, where “text is better than icons” is Gmail’s overly stylized icons. I’ve changed mine back to text, but wow, those icons are so poorly designed.
atoav 8y ago
I think that a combination of both works well also, especially if the icon enhances the meaning of the text and the text enhances the meaning of the icon. Where the whole icon thing sort of works, is with tools where the words won’t be able to communicate what a tool means anyways and. when there are too much for (e.g. the tools in photoshop)
- edejong 8y ago
  Almost all tools can be summarized with one word [1]: Marquee, Move, Lasso, *Magic Wand, Heal, Paintbrush, Clone, Stencil, Eraser, Paintbucket, Smudge, Dodge/Burn, Path, Text, Pen, Shapes, Hand, Eyedrop, Hand, Zoom. [1] https://annhjelle.wordpress.com/assignments-2/assign-12-space-aliens/ https://annhjelle.wordpress.com/assignments-2/assign-12-spac...
  - kurtisc 8y ago
    Aren't those are summaries of the icons, not the tools? I'm struggling to come up with a concise and accurate way of describing the abstract actions of magic wand and heal, they might as well have been called foo and bar. I'd argue that you need to know what the icon means to know what the tool does - since you come across the icon first - and so would tautologically know what icon to look for to get the tool you want.
- another-dave 8y ago
  Yeah I agree. Photoshop also "benefits from" being an application of mostly power users who are willing to ramp up and learn icons and keyboard shortcuts. Imagine that users of an NHS website are infrequent at best with a large number of new users.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > I think that a combination of both works well also, especially if the icon enhances the meaning of the text and the text enhances the meaning of the icon. It's also a neat way to resolve issue with text-only buttons in multilingual software. From time to time, I find myself in front of an OS, an app or a website that's familiar to me, but is set to a language I don't know. Having an icon next to the text is very helpful then. That said, it's a rare case, so if I had to choose just one, I'd prefer text over icons.
edejong 8y ago
Although icons can be monochrome, they tend to apply colors to indicate their function (red = bad/remove/stop, green = good/add, blue = optional/new). One-word labels do not have this problem. As a colour-blind person, I take one-word labels over finicky icons any time.
- anoncake 8y ago
  While correct, I'm not sure this argument makes any difference. If a designer considers colorblind users, they can also make sure that their icons still work in monochrome.
Illotus 8y ago
Back when I read the usability literature on icons about 10 years ago, the consensus was pretty much that text was pretty much the best, icon and text was worse and only icons was really bad.
ozim 8y ago
Problem I see with designers is that they don't do enough work. If they put only icons, that is nice for someone who is used to app. If they put only text it gets annoying for power users. Of course switchable interfaces for "pro" and "noobs" cost more money. Downside with text is "pro" user would like to have more data in single screen to be done with what he wants to achieve. Though users are also in full spectrum, and sometimes even pro user can forget what icon was for ... let alone if someone comes up with brilliant idea to change icon to something totally different :)
- anoncake 8y ago
  Tooltips solve the problem of power users forgetting the meanings of icons.

kurtisc 8y ago

The NHS serves one dialect of one language. If you translate 'menu' into another language, you may need a classifier, an article, a case, a longer word, a non-alphabetic script, changing the reading direction, or more. Scaling this to a website that serves people internationally and needs to have a consistent branding is much harder than using an icon. There is a learning curve, it's just one you climbed when you learned the language (which may not be your own).

nostoc 8y ago
If you're building a website for more than one language, you'll need most of these anyway, for the content of the site...
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  Exactly, for accessibility you need all icons to have a text replacement, so you can just use that text instead of the icon at no extra translation cost.
yorwba 8y ago
The same learning curve applies to icons. If you think you can simply use the same icons in another language, you're going to confuse a lot of users without the shared cultural context. I once overheard a woman on an international flight from Beijing to Moscow explain to her daughter that the "house" icon of the in-flight entertainment system represented the "main page". The whole metaphor falls down as soon as there's no "home" in "home page".
- jonfw 8y ago
  I never considered this. Metaphors are very difficult to translate because while the primary definition of a word may be easily translatable, that translated word may have slightly different linguisitic properties that make the metaphor a little more abstract. In this example, "Home" in english doesn't always just refer to somebody's primary residence, we also use it as a descriptor or prefix (hometown). In china, the direct translation for "home" probably isn't also used as a descriptor, which means that they aren't used to using "home" in a more figurative sense.
DanBC 8y ago
> The NHS serves one dialect of one language. They also do Welsh. https://www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk/default.aspx?locale=cy https://www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk/default.aspx?locale=cy You may find this article, where they talk about using local slang instead of formal words: https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/transformation-blog/2019/pee-and-poo-and-the-language-of-health https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/transformation-blog/2019/pee-and...
- kurtisc 8y ago
  The Welsh site has different styling

signal11 8y ago

Well designed icons have their place, but a great example, for me, where “text is better than icons” is Gmail’s overly stylized icons. I’ve changed mine back to text, but wow, those icons are so poorly designed.

atoav 8y ago

I think that a combination of both works well also, especially if the icon enhances the meaning of the text and the text enhances the meaning of the icon. Where the whole icon thing sort of works, is with tools where the words won’t be able to communicate what a tool means anyways and. when there are too much for (e.g. the tools in photoshop)

edejong 8y ago
Almost all tools can be summarized with one word [1]: Marquee, Move, Lasso, *Magic Wand, Heal, Paintbrush, Clone, Stencil, Eraser, Paintbucket, Smudge, Dodge/Burn, Path, Text, Pen, Shapes, Hand, Eyedrop, Hand, Zoom. [1] https://annhjelle.wordpress.com/assignments-2/assign-12-space-aliens/ https://annhjelle.wordpress.com/assignments-2/assign-12-spac...
- kurtisc 8y ago
  Aren't those are summaries of the icons, not the tools? I'm struggling to come up with a concise and accurate way of describing the abstract actions of magic wand and heal, they might as well have been called foo and bar. I'd argue that you need to know what the icon means to know what the tool does - since you come across the icon first - and so would tautologically know what icon to look for to get the tool you want.
another-dave 8y ago
Yeah I agree. Photoshop also "benefits from" being an application of mostly power users who are willing to ramp up and learn icons and keyboard shortcuts. Imagine that users of an NHS website are infrequent at best with a large number of new users.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> I think that a combination of both works well also, especially if the icon enhances the meaning of the text and the text enhances the meaning of the icon. It's also a neat way to resolve issue with text-only buttons in multilingual software. From time to time, I find myself in front of an OS, an app or a website that's familiar to me, but is set to a language I don't know. Having an icon next to the text is very helpful then. That said, it's a rare case, so if I had to choose just one, I'd prefer text over icons.

edejong 8y ago

Although icons can be monochrome, they tend to apply colors to indicate their function (red = bad/remove/stop, green = good/add, blue = optional/new). One-word labels do not have this problem. As a colour-blind person, I take one-word labels over finicky icons any time.

anoncake 8y ago
While correct, I'm not sure this argument makes any difference. If a designer considers colorblind users, they can also make sure that their icons still work in monochrome.

Illotus 8y ago

Back when I read the usability literature on icons about 10 years ago, the consensus was pretty much that text was pretty much the best, icon and text was worse and only icons was really bad.

ozim 8y ago

Problem I see with designers is that they don't do enough work. If they put only icons, that is nice for someone who is used to app. If they put only text it gets annoying for power users. Of course switchable interfaces for "pro" and "noobs" cost more money. Downside with text is "pro" user would like to have more data in single screen to be done with what he wants to achieve. Though users are also in full spectrum, and sometimes even pro user can forget what icon was for ... let alone if someone comes up with brilliant idea to change icon to something totally different :)

anoncake 8y ago
Tooltips solve the problem of power users forgetting the meanings of icons.