4 ms·

I was troubleshooting WhatsApp over the phone for a relative work different hardware... Took me a bit of time to realize "solid triangle-ish" was wifi and "cup"

by ilkan 7y ago

I was troubleshooting WhatsApp over the phone for a relative work different hardware... Took me a bit of time to realize "solid triangle-ish" was wifi and "cup" was microphone. But for the Gen-Z and after, how would you intuitively represent Save and Call to people who've never seen a floppy disk or a phone handset?

antod 7y ago
Floppy disk, sure. But phone handset? Old movies and TV shows set in the past will keep that image alive like it did for us with knowing what phones looked like before our time. Unless you think movies/TV will go away too...
- usrusr 7y ago
  I agree that outdated symbols won't be a problem for younger generations, but for different reasons. The "save" icon has long stopped being a floppy disk. It may still look like one (to those who know the object depicted), but it is identified as just "save" and nothing more. If people would identify it with portable media instead of the act of storing the current document, they would also try to use it for loading a document. Nobody does that. Old entertainment content however, I'm afraid that it might be pretty much lost to those growing up with on demand streaming. In the age of linear TV, back catalog content wasn't just available to consume in lieu of something new, it was actively fed to us by the fixed schedule on failure to tune in when the new stuff was aired. This introduced us to a lot of content from before our time. But with streaming, I just don't see how it would happen, not in culturally relevant volume. Nostalgia is an acquired taste. Just like so many of my generation I madly binged Friends when it appeared on Netflix, but how many streamed Friends who completely missed it's original run?
  - snakeboy 7y ago
    > but how many streamed Friends who completely missed it's original run? 23 year old here. I had never seen Friends, thus I never had any nostalgic interest in visiting it. One weekend last year I had an onsite interview in Denver just before a blizzard hit, snowing me into a Motel 6 for 2 days. No wifi, so I did nothing but watch Friends and Seinfeld reruns on the TV. Probably the first time I'd used a television in my adult life. I also caught Forrest Gump for the first time late that night. Not a bad film.
    - labster 7y ago
      Thank you for making half of us readers feel old and decrepit. Your work here is done.
  - jdofaz 7y ago
    I Love Lucy had fans over generations thanks to reruns. I've mentioned the show a few times in conversations with people in their early 20s and usually they have never heard of it.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      I was starting to get uneasy about the problem that later gained prominence under the term "filter bubble" quite early. But the "now bubble" that is taking shape in this little discussion sidetrack? Totally did not see that one coming. We were not only wrong about mainstream news sources back in the 90ies, but also about mindless channel hoping: it can have horizon-widening qualities? Anecdote time: I surely did not learn anything about the Korea war from MASH reruns other than "the time depicted is too recent for ww2 and too long ago for Vietnam, so apparently America had yet another war in Asia". But that was enough to create a gathering place inside my mind for all those tiny information scraps about this part of history that would otherwise new lost, surprisingly helpful.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hnick 7y ago
For save I've seen an arrow pointing into a folder (opposite of the typical 'open') or a computery-looking grey square with an arrow pointing downwards overlaid.
- sorenjan 7y ago
  The problem with the folder idea is that a lot of young people doesn't know how folders work. And nowadays a lot of files aren't saved to local storage, and even then, local storage is probably not a computer but a phone. https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/10/31/ https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/10/31/

by ilkan 7y ago

antod 7y ago

Floppy disk, sure. But phone handset? Old movies and TV shows set in the past will keep that image alive like it did for us with knowing what phones looked like before our time. Unless you think movies/TV will go away too...

usrusr 7y ago
I agree that outdated symbols won't be a problem for younger generations, but for different reasons. The "save" icon has long stopped being a floppy disk. It may still look like one (to those who know the object depicted), but it is identified as just "save" and nothing more. If people would identify it with portable media instead of the act of storing the current document, they would also try to use it for loading a document. Nobody does that. Old entertainment content however, I'm afraid that it might be pretty much lost to those growing up with on demand streaming. In the age of linear TV, back catalog content wasn't just available to consume in lieu of something new, it was actively fed to us by the fixed schedule on failure to tune in when the new stuff was aired. This introduced us to a lot of content from before our time. But with streaming, I just don't see how it would happen, not in culturally relevant volume. Nostalgia is an acquired taste. Just like so many of my generation I madly binged Friends when it appeared on Netflix, but how many streamed Friends who completely missed it's original run?
- snakeboy 7y ago
  > but how many streamed Friends who completely missed it's original run? 23 year old here. I had never seen Friends, thus I never had any nostalgic interest in visiting it. One weekend last year I had an onsite interview in Denver just before a blizzard hit, snowing me into a Motel 6 for 2 days. No wifi, so I did nothing but watch Friends and Seinfeld reruns on the TV. Probably the first time I'd used a television in my adult life. I also caught Forrest Gump for the first time late that night. Not a bad film.
  - labster 7y ago
    Thank you for making half of us readers feel old and decrepit. Your work here is done.
- jdofaz 7y ago
  I Love Lucy had fans over generations thanks to reruns. I've mentioned the show a few times in conversations with people in their early 20s and usually they have never heard of it.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    I was starting to get uneasy about the problem that later gained prominence under the term "filter bubble" quite early. But the "now bubble" that is taking shape in this little discussion sidetrack? Totally did not see that one coming. We were not only wrong about mainstream news sources back in the 90ies, but also about mindless channel hoping: it can have horizon-widening qualities? Anecdote time: I surely did not learn anything about the Korea war from MASH reruns other than "the time depicted is too recent for ww2 and too long ago for Vietnam, so apparently America had yet another war in Asia". But that was enough to create a gathering place inside my mind for all those tiny information scraps about this part of history that would otherwise new lost, surprisingly helpful.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hnick 7y ago

For save I've seen an arrow pointing into a folder (opposite of the typical 'open') or a computery-looking grey square with an arrow pointing downwards overlaid.

sorenjan 7y ago
The problem with the folder idea is that a lot of young people doesn't know how folders work. And nowadays a lot of files aren't saved to local storage, and even then, local storage is probably not a computer but a phone. https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/10/31/ https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/10/31/