I have always hated icons and their proliferation. I advocate for text, but it usually falls on deaf ears. I've been wondering why and recently hit on a new hy

I have always hated icons and their proliferation. I advocate for text, but it usually falls on deaf ears. I've been wondering why and recently hit on a new hypothesis: many people are slow readers. It takes me about a second to read all of the labels in a typical menu column, if I'm familiar with what sort of things might be in the menu. I'm starting to realize this is not true for everyone. For me, there is never a time when it's faster to interpret an icon than text. But I'm becoming sympathetic to the fact that we may need to accomodate slow readers in UI design. I just wish there was a toggle to disable all of the icons in my entire operating system, with the exception of minimize, maximize, and close.