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The evolution of the On/Off power switch symbol (2008)
- eruleman 3y agoI've noticed that lots of appliances now use the On/Off power symbol to mean start/stop the appliance, not cutting off power. Stuff like coffee makers etc. It's weird.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- graypegg 3y agoI have actually seen the diamond "start" symbol [0] on ONE consumer-ish appliance! It was an office coffee machine at my old job, big green membrane IEC start button. These symbols are ubiquitous on industrial kit (and in your car, surprisingly enough), it's kind of a shame they are barely used at all else where. There's a pretty wide vocabulary of symbols. [0] https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#iec:grs:60417:5104 https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#iec:grs:60417:5104
- aargh_aargh 3y agoYou've never used one of these? https://duckduckgo.com/?ia=images&iax=images&q=photocopier+start+button https://duckduckgo.com/?ia=images&iax=images&q=photocopier+s...
- JohnFen 3y agoI always thought that was a quirk of photocopier manufacturers. It stuck in my mind because the symbol makes no sense to me. I didn't realize it was an actual standard. Still doesn't mean the symbol makes any sense, but hey, at least it's a standard.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoPhotocopiers? Yeah, I saw that symbol on some of them. But then even some of the image results show that manufacturers of photocopiers and printers, particularly targeting general consumer market, let their designers get creative with the shapes, colors and labels on the buttons.
- graypegg 3y agoA bit snarky, but yes, I've used a photocopier. I guess the shape of the symbol of the start button on the photocopiers I used slipped my mind.
- quietbritishjim 3y agoNo, the one-inside-a-circle symbol does not indicate a toggle between off and on, as this article "surmises". Instead, it indicates stands by. This is off, but not fully off as a circle would suggest. It's nearly on. The symbol is great for that. On a push button it means activate stand by or come back out of it (i.e., turn back on fully). Still fair enough. Unfortunately, this knowledge has watered down over time. I've seen that symbol used more than once for a button that only turns on a device (never back to stand by). That's pretty much the opposite of its original meaning.
- eviks 3y agoIndeed, and even in 2008 when this article was written Wikipedia had this explanation > IEC 5009, the standby symbol (line partially within a broken circle), indicates a sleep mode or low power state. The switch does not fully disconnect the device from its power supply. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Power_symbol&oldid=206350638 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Power_symbol&oldi...
- FrankSansC 3y agoExactly, there's even standards[0] for this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol#Standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol#Standards
- JohnFen 3y agoInteresting. I remember when that symbol was first getting used, but I don't remember anyone ever explaining that until you just did now. To me, it always meant "on/off" (counting "standby" as "off"). I thought it was just an artistic way of taking the "1" and "0" that was often used on power toggle switches and combining them into a single symbol for a single pushbutton (the "1" is inside the stylized "0").
- CharlesW 3y ago> No, the one-inside-a-circle symbol does not indicate a toggle between off and on, as this article "surmises". According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol#Standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol#Standards, "one inside a circle", IEC 60417-5010, is a fully-on/fully-off toggle. The "one breaking a circle" symbol, IEC 60417-5009, is a fully-on/standby toggle.
- smlacy 3y agoNo discussion about use of 0/1 for power switches is complete without mention of the original IBM 5150 (original PC) power switch, which is the first place I ever remember seeing the "binary" 0/1 used to mean "power on / power off" on electronics.
- edent 3y agoAnd it is now in Unicode thanks (in part) to HN. https://unicodepowersymbol.com/we-did-it-how-a-comment-on-hackernews-lead-to-4-%c2%bd-new-unicode-characters/ https://unicodepowersymbol.com/we-did-it-how-a-comment-on-ha...
- RymMichaut 3y agoGot through all of them... definitly an 80s born... XD
- dehrmann 3y agoThe 1/0 thing confused me for a while because 0 looks like a circuit (on), and 1 doesn't (0ff). I was also taking electrical engineering classes at the time, and the 1/0 true/false thing was already halfway arbitrary because of active-low pins, and even in software land, "return 0" could mean either true or false depending on the context.
- wanderr 3y agoThat confused me as well, I never made the connection to 0 and 1 until someone told me
- bcherry 3y agoI agree that I/O has always been confusing and non-intuitive. O stands for "On"? For "Off"? I means eyes-shut? O means eyes open? The new symbols aren't any better but the UX of "push this button to turn on or off" combined with obvious lights/etc when something is on has mostly made the semantic meaning of the symbols obsolete to 99% of consumers.
- astrobe_ 3y agoI've always seen it as I/O and thought of it as In and Out - makes sense to me but English is not my native language.
- danans 3y agoI always assumed it was an abstract representation of a rotary switch like: https://images.app.goo.gl/MQ81XWMZP2dgqkjN7 https://images.app.goo.gl/MQ81XWMZP2dgqkjN7
- tshaddox 3y agoAlso, a perfect circle would almost never strike me as a zero.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoThe difference between perfect circle, 'o', 'O' and '0' is contextual, since the shape of all four of them is approximately the same. On their own, the characters themselves are often ambiguous in print, and totally ambiguous in handwriting.
- dheera 3y agoThe one I REALLY HATE is the paper orientation icon on printer paper trays. Ones like these: https://static.thenounproject.com/png/4256363-200.png https://static.thenounproject.com/png/4256363-200.png Do the lines on the paper mean "insert the side that already has writing face up, and the side that is blank face down" OR "these lines represent what will happen after you print but they're just being represented here for your imagination purposes even though they aren't there yet so you should really put the blank side up even though we are drawing lines on the up side"
- Dwedit 3y agoI think it's pretty clear, the fold indicates what should be the top side of the page, and the lines indicate it wants printed side up.
- dheera 3y ago> what it wants printed That's the part that isn't clear. How do I know that the lines don't indicate "what is already printed" and the blank side indicates "the blank canvas that it wants as input"?
- aendruk 3y agoIf you put the printed side up, the next print will be superimposed and make gibberish.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoLikewise the indication (if any) on a sheet-fed scanner tray that tells you whether to put the paper in face up or face down. I've taken to just writing instructions to myself on that type of thing with a sharpie, using actual text, and/or an actual diagram. It works well with the usual beige plastic. If it's black, I usually put it on a small piece of paper and tape it somewhere it won't interfere with the operation. Not everything has to be an icon. IMO, bad icons are far worse than no icons.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- onychomys 3y agoWe should probably add a (2008) to the submission title on this.
- SoftTalker 3y agoThere are other, sometimes contradictory conventions. In the USA, a standard wall switch is moved "up" for on and "down" for off whereas in Europe it's the opposite. Always wondered how that came to be.
- JohnFen 3y ago(US here) -- I remember to install light switches so that the up position is "on" because of a faulty light switch I had decades ago -- the spring holding the position was broken so that, over time, gravity would eventually make it fall to the lower position. Having the lower position be "off" seems like a good failsafe for that sort of thing. I don't know if that's why the convention, but it is the mechanism that I use to remember what the convention is.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoThen there's standard walls switch in Europe, which works whichever way the electrician happened to wire it. And then, existence of "stair switches"[0] means you can't ever rely on directionality being consistent. Now, let's talk about water faucets and which side is hot, and which one is cold... -- [0] - Don't know what the formal way for these are; I'm thinking of two switches hooked up in a XOR pattern to the same light - i.e. light turns on when the switches are in opposite positions, and off if they're in the same position.
- JohnFen 3y ago> Don't know what the formal way for these are These are called "three-way switches" in the US.
- SoftTalker 3y agoOddly named, as they only have two switches in the circuit.
- JohnFen 3y agoThey're called "three-way" because there are three elements to the circuits they're used in: two switches and a load. ...or so I was taught, but that explanation always seemed a little dubious to me.
- mattmaroon 3y agoAm I the only one who can still never remember which one is which?
- jve 3y agoWell I mastered the practice a while ago. But here you are: cast them to booleans. 1/0 -> true/false
- geor9e 3y agoThe bus I take to work has their air vents labeled backwards ⭘ for on/open ⏽ for off/shut
- Doxin 3y agoThat sort of makes sense if you interpret it as circle/line and not 0/1. A circle for an open vent and a line for a closed vent. That's still dumb though. Why not use the universal bacon/no bacon icons?
- waynesonfire 3y agoThis button instills in me a profound sense of joy. Throughout my life, the press of this button has unveiled curiosity, learning, and wonder.
- flpm 3y agoThere is an exhibit right now at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in NYC about the work of Henry Dreyfuss did with his Symbol Sourcebook (https://www.cooperhewitt.org/channel/give-me-a-sign/ https://www.cooperhewitt.org/channel/give-me-a-sign/) which heavily influenced the design of most symbols we use today, including this one. You can view most of the exhibit online: https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/exhibitions/2318807647/ https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/exhibitions/2318807647/ Worth taking a look!
- agumonkey 3y agoI always thought it was a bad visual metaphor for open vs closed circuit
- jve 3y agoYeah. I kind of associated I as a continuous line and O a loop which never works (something like infinite loop). But not he says it conveys 1 and 0... so simple... true or false. That would have been easier on my brains :)
- agumonkey 3y agothe O was confusing but later the I crossing the O was kinda like a gate to me it's funny to realize that nobody had the same interpretation of this ubiquitous thing
- josefritz 3y agoThere are challenges inherent in creating a set of visual symbols to communicate. We have crossed that bridge before and we call them "words". I wish designers might fall back on that more for ease of use instead of creating generation after generation of arcane, fleetingly extant symbols.
- readthenotes1 3y agoTldr: the author failed to read the wiki article explaining what the power symbols mean