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Once a symbol has a meaning, it works, and continues to work as long as people know its meaning. This article is akin to complaining that the letters of the alp

Once a symbol has a meaning, it works, and continues to work as long as people know its meaning. This article is akin to complaining that the letters of the alphabet or the spelling of words don't represent their sound or meaning well. True, but what is there to do about it? There is no need to cleanse the world of symbols away because the metaphor no longer holds. And no, young people have absolutely no problem figuring out what the symbols are for - they just don't know why. Oh well.

greenyoda 13y ago
Exactly; having symbols that are stable and which everyone understands is very helpful. Everybody knows that the "floppy disk" icon means "save". What would we replace it with? An image of one of the many common shapes of an SD card? And what if next year a different form of storage becomes common? Do we change all the UIs? Not to mention that it's nice to have UIs that carry over from one device to another, so that you don't have to switch to a whole new set of symbols when you go from your laptop to your phone.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Everybody who has experience with a computer that is. There are many more people on Earth that were not exposed to the current paradigms of UI and they would benefit from sane symbols.
  - Gormo 13y ago
    Also, they should be spared the burden of having to learn existing natural languages, with all of their multiple strata of evolutionary development. Instead, new spoken languages should be devised from scratch every generation or two, to prevent people from being contaminated by exposure to historical context.
jared314 13y ago
This reminds me of a scene from The Diamond Age where a child read animated characters instead of static letters and words. While you could switch to the old style, the animated ones were easier to distinguish, and so preferred by him.
- lcedp 13y ago
  "Bud took a seat and skimmed a mediatron from the coffee table; it looked exactly like a dirty, wrinkled, blank sheet of paper. "'Annals of Self-Protection,'" he said, loud enough for everyone else in the place to hear him. The logo of his favorite meedfeed coalesced on the page. Mediaglyphics, mostly the cool animated ones, arranged themselves in a grid. Bud scanned through them until he found the one that denoted a comparison of a bunch of different stuff, and snapped at it with his fingernail. New mediaglyphics appeared, surrounding larger pictures in which Annals staff tested several models of skull guns against live and dead targets." Animated icons it is. There is also a mention of these symbols in Anathem. I haven't got an impression that author sees them as a higher form of communication, rather they are a more "secular" form. Btw, I have under 200 program icons in the launcher of my phone, they are arranged (or better word disarranged) in a grid by alphabet or installation time, some are in folders. I know the position of frequently used ones but for rare used ones nothing is better then good old search by letters.

greenyoda 13y ago

Exactly; having symbols that are stable and which everyone understands is very helpful. Everybody knows that the "floppy disk" icon means "save". What would we replace it with? An image of one of the many common shapes of an SD card? And what if next year a different form of storage becomes common? Do we change all the UIs? Not to mention that it's nice to have UIs that carry over from one device to another, so that you don't have to switch to a whole new set of symbols when you go from your laptop to your phone.

vdaniuk 13y ago
Everybody who has experience with a computer that is. There are many more people on Earth that were not exposed to the current paradigms of UI and they would benefit from sane symbols.
- Gormo 13y ago
  Also, they should be spared the burden of having to learn existing natural languages, with all of their multiple strata of evolutionary development. Instead, new spoken languages should be devised from scratch every generation or two, to prevent people from being contaminated by exposure to historical context.

jared314 13y ago

This reminds me of a scene from The Diamond Age where a child read animated characters instead of static letters and words. While you could switch to the old style, the animated ones were easier to distinguish, and so preferred by him.

lcedp 13y ago
"Bud took a seat and skimmed a mediatron from the coffee table; it looked exactly like a dirty, wrinkled, blank sheet of paper. "'Annals of Self-Protection,'" he said, loud enough for everyone else in the place to hear him. The logo of his favorite meedfeed coalesced on the page. Mediaglyphics, mostly the cool animated ones, arranged themselves in a grid. Bud scanned through them until he found the one that denoted a comparison of a bunch of different stuff, and snapped at it with his fingernail. New mediaglyphics appeared, surrounding larger pictures in which Annals staff tested several models of skull guns against live and dead targets." Animated icons it is. There is also a mention of these symbols in Anathem. I haven't got an impression that author sees them as a higher form of communication, rather they are a more "secular" form. Btw, I have under 200 program icons in the launcher of my phone, they are arranged (or better word disarranged) in a grid by alphabet or installation time, some are in folders. I know the position of frequently used ones but for rare used ones nothing is better then good old search by letters.