3 ms·

> More than understand an inscrutable icon. Besides, anyone can look up Fuel in a dictionary. How do you look up an icon? This makes sense. But I think that's

> More than understand an inscrutable icon. Besides, anyone can look up Fuel in a dictionary. How do you look up an icon? This makes sense. But I think that's why the unicode consortium adds common gestures/symbols/icons so actively. The icon-recognizing problem you address here is not impossible to fix with some app combining scanner and translator.

WalterBright 7y ago
I'd fix it by using words. Icons are a solution looking for a problem and causing problems.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  Gas is a pretty obvious one, because both fuel pumps and gas cans are relatively commonplace. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fuel+icon&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fuel+icon&t=h_&iax=images&ia=image... It can be fairly simple, I think.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Is it obvious, or are you simply accustomed to it? Or is it watch out for the alien with his wiener in his ear?
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
      Or are you simply accustomed to it? Got me there, I suppose.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    The funny thing that in US "gas" may mean liquid fuel and not compressed propane.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  I appreciated your comments throughout this thread. Symbol language works better in the longer term. When there's consensus about the icon functionality, they work. Look at traffic signs in Europe. They barely contain text. In the USA, they contain text all the time. In a large country where the main language is English this makes sense. In a continent consisting of many languages (and tourism), its important to have consensus on symbols instead. What does suck is converting to symbols from text whilst you're used to text. That's the legacy of backwards compatibility.
- ajmurmann 7y ago
  You are oversimplifying. There is a valuable trade off between text on one end and abstract symbols on the other. Icons are in the middle. On the text end of the spectrum you have high clarity, but it takes longer time to take in and find the one you are looking for. These are good if you rarely interact with the them and it's in situations that aren't urgent and you can't or don't have to train for. Abstract symbols on the other hand are fastest to identify but require you to be trained. This makes sense for power users out urgent situations that are worth preparing for. Icons are the middle ground. You can identify them faster than a walk of text and you might be able to guess pretty well what they mean on first encounter. Using icons on a car this makes sense. You might have to do a little bit of trial and error the first time around, but will be much faster on future usage. This is a worthwhile trade off for a car, since you want the driver to quickly find the right control and then look at the road again. It works especially well given that the vast majority of icons are common between different cars. I think it's even a better trade off for traffic signs, since drivers get trained anyway. All but new drivers will quickly start relying on the shape of the text on the sign, rather than read all the text on every speed limit sign. If you do need to read it, the amount of text is not practical.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > On the text end of the spectrum you have high clarity, but it takes longer time to take in and find the one you are looking for. I just don't believe it takes a longer time to find the word "Defrost". > These are good if you rarely interact with the them and it's in situations that aren't urgent and you can't or don't have to train for. Take a look at aircraft instrument panels. They are very much designed for clarity and to be usable in emergencies, usually the hard way. They use words. Altimeter, Airspeed, Vertical Speed, etc. > you might be able to guess pretty well what they mean on first encounter. Not me. 3/4 of icons in new cars I don't know what they mean. Most of the ones on my iphone as well. Thankfully, sometimes they use words like Save, Edit, Library, etc., and I no trouble with them. The ones on the app screen thankfully have a word under them. After all, look at that weird stick icon, which has "App Store" written under it. Or the Photos icon. Apple has even given up on the trash can, reverting to the word "Delete". > but will be much faster on future usage Pilots and airplane cockpit designers evidently disagree. > drivers Quite a lot of concepts have no picture that makes any inherent sense for it. Like "60 miles per hour". Or "stop". or "yield". You can certainly get used to a red octagon meaning Stop, but for someone who is not trained on it, the red octagon might as well mean "pizza next exit". I lived in Europe around 1970, when they were transitioning from the old signage with words to the new ones. They wanted to harmonize the signs. The trouble is, if they used words, it was a matter of national prestige which language was used. Using icons was a solution to the political issue, not a readability one. The American stop sign was settled on because nobody could agree which European stop sign would be selected, so the compromise was none of them. To sell this all to the public was the notion that icons are better, but it was really political.

WalterBright 7y ago

I'd fix it by using words. Icons are a solution looking for a problem and causing problems.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
Gas is a pretty obvious one, because both fuel pumps and gas cans are relatively commonplace. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fuel+icon&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fuel+icon&t=h_&iax=images&ia=image... It can be fairly simple, I think.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Is it obvious, or are you simply accustomed to it? Or is it watch out for the alien with his wiener in his ear?
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    Or are you simply accustomed to it? Got me there, I suppose.
- nine_k 7y ago
  The funny thing that in US "gas" may mean liquid fuel and not compressed propane.
Fnoord 7y ago
I appreciated your comments throughout this thread. Symbol language works better in the longer term. When there's consensus about the icon functionality, they work. Look at traffic signs in Europe. They barely contain text. In the USA, they contain text all the time. In a large country where the main language is English this makes sense. In a continent consisting of many languages (and tourism), its important to have consensus on symbols instead. What does suck is converting to symbols from text whilst you're used to text. That's the legacy of backwards compatibility.
ajmurmann 7y ago
You are oversimplifying. There is a valuable trade off between text on one end and abstract symbols on the other. Icons are in the middle. On the text end of the spectrum you have high clarity, but it takes longer time to take in and find the one you are looking for. These are good if you rarely interact with the them and it's in situations that aren't urgent and you can't or don't have to train for. Abstract symbols on the other hand are fastest to identify but require you to be trained. This makes sense for power users out urgent situations that are worth preparing for. Icons are the middle ground. You can identify them faster than a walk of text and you might be able to guess pretty well what they mean on first encounter. Using icons on a car this makes sense. You might have to do a little bit of trial and error the first time around, but will be much faster on future usage. This is a worthwhile trade off for a car, since you want the driver to quickly find the right control and then look at the road again. It works especially well given that the vast majority of icons are common between different cars. I think it's even a better trade off for traffic signs, since drivers get trained anyway. All but new drivers will quickly start relying on the shape of the text on the sign, rather than read all the text on every speed limit sign. If you do need to read it, the amount of text is not practical.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > On the text end of the spectrum you have high clarity, but it takes longer time to take in and find the one you are looking for. I just don't believe it takes a longer time to find the word "Defrost". > These are good if you rarely interact with the them and it's in situations that aren't urgent and you can't or don't have to train for. Take a look at aircraft instrument panels. They are very much designed for clarity and to be usable in emergencies, usually the hard way. They use words. Altimeter, Airspeed, Vertical Speed, etc. > you might be able to guess pretty well what they mean on first encounter. Not me. 3/4 of icons in new cars I don't know what they mean. Most of the ones on my iphone as well. Thankfully, sometimes they use words like Save, Edit, Library, etc., and I no trouble with them. The ones on the app screen thankfully have a word under them. After all, look at that weird stick icon, which has "App Store" written under it. Or the Photos icon. Apple has even given up on the trash can, reverting to the word "Delete". > but will be much faster on future usage Pilots and airplane cockpit designers evidently disagree. > drivers Quite a lot of concepts have no picture that makes any inherent sense for it. Like "60 miles per hour". Or "stop". or "yield". You can certainly get used to a red octagon meaning Stop, but for someone who is not trained on it, the red octagon might as well mean "pizza next exit". I lived in Europe around 1970, when they were transitioning from the old signage with words to the new ones. They wanted to harmonize the signs. The trouble is, if they used words, it was a matter of national prestige which language was used. Using icons was a solution to the political issue, not a readability one. The American stop sign was settled on because nobody could agree which European stop sign would be selected, so the compromise was none of them. To sell this all to the public was the notion that icons are better, but it was really political.