I think visual signs are an amazing way to impart immediate information at a glance. Take road signs for example, at speed I can know what to expect around the

I think visual signs are an amazing way to impart immediate information at a glance. Take road signs for example, at speed I can know what to expect around the corner. However it is another language to learn and as such needs standardisation to be useful. If I go to another country and start driving the road symbols mean something else. Its the same in the GUI. The symbols should allow me to move quicker around the interface, even if I've not used the software before. The issues I see are each OS/App can, and does, use their own symbols for the same functionality (sure there are some universals like cut/copy/paste). And like the article these symbols now appear to be getting used as bullet points, so each item needs it's bullet points. In my opinion, and like the greyed out keyboard shortcuts over to the right of some menu items, these symbols should only be there when they denote actions that can be done by clicking a button. They should be imparting the mouse equivalent or those keyboard shortcuts, a way to navigate and do actions; not as some decoration. Imparting the language of the GUI. So yeah I agree with the article. Function over design aesthetic every time.