4 ms·

That argument applies to words too. The string ‘run’ has to be learned. So does the spoken version. So does the idea. And you have to relearn the word in each

That argument applies to words too. The string ‘run’ has to be learned. So does the spoken version. So does the idea. And you have to relearn the word in each language.

WalterBright 5y ago
> The string ‘run’ has to be learned Yes, it does. And 'run' can be looked up in a dictionary. Even by someone who doesn't know English. Not so for icons. I am constantly amazed at the collective blindness to the enormous practical advantages of a phonetic alphabet. Steve Jobs was incredibly good at selling the emperor clothes.
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  Dictionary is tech that addresses this problem for words. There are some catches, like you have to guess the language up front. And you have to know the ordering, eg how to look up Chinese characters. Tooltip is tech that address this for icons. Again, a partial solution. Image search can help in a pinch too. I don’t see anyone claiming that words are bad. The iPhone uses icon+word on the launch screen and Mac toolbars are usually configurable to use both. Finder panes have text-first lists and icon grids at your choice. Not sure what your amazement is about.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > I don’t see anyone claiming that words are bad. That's what the sales pitch is for icons. > are usually configurable to use both Don't forget all the uses of icons where it is molded into the button. Take a look at your car's dashboard. > iPhone uses icon+word on the launch screen Only for some items. The bottom row on my iphone does not have text. Of course <cough>everyone knows</cough> that the needle in circle launches the browser. Sure.
    - robotresearcher 5y ago
      The sales pitch for icons is that they can be better than words for some purposes. The play/pause icons on a miniature Japanese cassette player are a good example. No need for localization, efficient use of space, learn them in a couple of interactions. Now universal. ‘Icons are good sometimes’ is not a spit on words. I’ll happily concede that icons are hard to look up. Tooltips are a smart mitigation for this problem, where available.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > The play/pause icons Arrows are indeed icons that work. The square for "stop" - how is that intuitive?
        robotresearcher 5y ago
        Not harder to learn than ‘stop/parar/arreter/halt’ Even with a dictionary in front of me I’m not sure which German word is right for stopping music. But I know the icon for a German-localized device. If you move the Safari icon out of the shortcut dock so you can read the word ‘Safari’ it would still not suggest ‘web browser’ to a noob. Pros and cons. And discoverability has definitely moved backwards since the classic Mac desktop.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > Even with a dictionary in front of me I’m not sure which German word is right for stopping music That's because to learn what a word means, you use a German->English dictionary. If you want to learn what the German word is for stop, you use an English-German dictionary, and this is not relevant for labels in German. > Safari At least I could look it up in the index of the manual. Or I could ask "What is Safari?" when I call tech support. > Pros and cons Definitely. But the main Pro seems to be "it looks pretty" along with misguided virtue signalling. Plenty, plenty cons.
    - robotresearcher 5y ago
      I’m pretty sure that cockpits have glyphs instead of words because it’s known to be faster/more reliable to recognize them than word labels, and language is not an issue. Cockpits are expert user interfaces. Some icons are better than others, and some are bad. I’ve never loved the burger menu button, for example.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > you have to guess the language up front I don't know many people who have no idea what the language of the country they're in is. For languages on the internet, cut&pasting the text into google translate works fine. Google infers the language. > you have to know the ordering Not necessary. Even for Chinese. I bet you could quickly infer the ordering of a script unknown to you by just flipping through the pages of a dictionary. This is impossible for icons, as icons have no order.

That argument applies to words too. The string ‘run’ has to be learned. So does the spoken version. So does the idea. And you have to relearn the word in each language.

WalterBright 5y ago

> The string ‘run’ has to be learned Yes, it does. And 'run' can be looked up in a dictionary. Even by someone who doesn't know English. Not so for icons. I am constantly amazed at the collective blindness to the enormous practical advantages of a phonetic alphabet. Steve Jobs was incredibly good at selling the emperor clothes.

robotresearcher 5y ago
Dictionary is tech that addresses this problem for words. There are some catches, like you have to guess the language up front. And you have to know the ordering, eg how to look up Chinese characters. Tooltip is tech that address this for icons. Again, a partial solution. Image search can help in a pinch too. I don’t see anyone claiming that words are bad. The iPhone uses icon+word on the launch screen and Mac toolbars are usually configurable to use both. Finder panes have text-first lists and icon grids at your choice. Not sure what your amazement is about.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > I don’t see anyone claiming that words are bad. That's what the sales pitch is for icons. > are usually configurable to use both Don't forget all the uses of icons where it is molded into the button. Take a look at your car's dashboard. > iPhone uses icon+word on the launch screen Only for some items. The bottom row on my iphone does not have text. Of course <cough>everyone knows</cough> that the needle in circle launches the browser. Sure.
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    The sales pitch for icons is that they can be better than words for some purposes. The play/pause icons on a miniature Japanese cassette player are a good example. No need for localization, efficient use of space, learn them in a couple of interactions. Now universal. ‘Icons are good sometimes’ is not a spit on words. I’ll happily concede that icons are hard to look up. Tooltips are a smart mitigation for this problem, where available.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > The play/pause icons Arrows are indeed icons that work. The square for "stop" - how is that intuitive?
      - robotresearcher 5y ago
        Not harder to learn than ‘stop/parar/arreter/halt’ Even with a dictionary in front of me I’m not sure which German word is right for stopping music. But I know the icon for a German-localized device. If you move the Safari icon out of the shortcut dock so you can read the word ‘Safari’ it would still not suggest ‘web browser’ to a noob. Pros and cons. And discoverability has definitely moved backwards since the classic Mac desktop.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > Even with a dictionary in front of me I’m not sure which German word is right for stopping music That's because to learn what a word means, you use a German->English dictionary. If you want to learn what the German word is for stop, you use an English-German dictionary, and this is not relevant for labels in German. > Safari At least I could look it up in the index of the manual. Or I could ask "What is Safari?" when I call tech support. > Pros and cons Definitely. But the main Pro seems to be "it looks pretty" along with misguided virtue signalling. Plenty, plenty cons.
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    I’m pretty sure that cockpits have glyphs instead of words because it’s known to be faster/more reliable to recognize them than word labels, and language is not an issue. Cockpits are expert user interfaces. Some icons are better than others, and some are bad. I’ve never loved the burger menu button, for example.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > you have to guess the language up front I don't know many people who have no idea what the language of the country they're in is. For languages on the internet, cut&pasting the text into google translate works fine. Google infers the language. > you have to know the ordering Not necessary. Even for Chinese. I bet you could quickly infer the ordering of a script unknown to you by just flipping through the pages of a dictionary. This is impossible for icons, as icons have no order.