
Usability in Icons - Oestrogen
http://stiern.com/articles/usability/usability-in-icons/
======
RyanGWU82
It drives my boss crazy that the universal icon for Save is a picture of a
floppy disk. We haven't been saving documents to floppy since 1993! But it's
also scary to be the first one to buck the trend, so our product uses the same
floppy disk as everyone else...

~~~
rix0r
It recently occurred to me that the icon of a phone is of a type of phone that
almost nobody uses anymore. And the icon of a camping site uses a model of
tent that nobody uses anymore either.

Our kids will be so confused...

~~~
nostromo
Similarly, to access music on my iPhone, I click an image of an iPod.

Another anecdote: I heard on some NPR show that most kids don't understand
what the sound of a record being scratched to a halt actually is. (This sound:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn6s1FE-yKQ>) When asked, they describe it as
the noise that is made on TV when you do a double-take.

~~~
tomjen3
TIL I guess.

And since I don't qualify as a kid, I am guessing that most mid-twenties
wouldn't know either.

~~~
callahad
I think vinyl was still sufficiently popular for most folks in their mid-
twenties to recognize it. I'm 25, and several of my grade school classrooms
had record players, not to mention all the homes of my parents, their friends,
and our extended family.

But as far as I can tell, few folks born in the mid-80s had significant direct
experience with records, to the point where there were cultural references to
our ignorance. In particular, I remember a sunday morning comic strip when I
was young that centered around kids not being able to identify a record
player. We were right on the cusp of its obsolescence.

To wit, I couldn't tell you the difference between a 33 and a 45 (well, it's
rpm, but are they different sizes?), and I've never owned music on vinyl.

I'd wager that people born in the 90s would be the first to be completely
unaware of the origins of the record scratching sound.

~~~
tomjen3
It might have been in the US but although my parents sometimes played records
I don't think I have ever heard that sound.

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harrybr
A great example of the wrong way to report user research.

\- How many participants were tested? \- Who was tested? \- What kind of test
was it? Survey? Lab study? etc? \- Between subjects or within (i.e. did the
same people see all the icons)?

I could go on.

~~~
epo
None of which really matters, at all. It's a blog post not a journal paper or
a research report. It would have been nice to see a link to a full account but
perhaps they couldn't decide how to represent that.

~~~
harrybr
Omitting these details turns it into "a fun discussion". Including these
details (even as a footnote) would turn it into a potentially useful piece of
research.

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gojomo
They seem to suggest the 'winning' icon for their purposes was simply 'www'.
(Perhaps, it was also blue and underlined, which are strong cues to average
users of linkishness.) But, there's no example image!

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ThomPete
Of course their experiment would show that.

It's a widely misunderstood claim that there exist some sort of universally
objective way to visualize various features.

Intuition around interfaces is learned through using the interface not by some
universally understood metaphors.

Most user don't understand what they are doing conceptually.

The original link (blue color underlined) is the most understood version of a
link yet the concept in itself brings no clarity of it's purpose.

The experiment is more or less a self-full-filled prophesy.

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skrebbel
Icons, in general, are overrated in my opinion. Only if an icon has a _very_
clear meaning to all it can be safely used. Using an icon anywhere else is a
big bet and starts with usability issues. E.g. whoever designed the
play/pause/stop/previous/next buttons pulled that off, but it's a risk.

I think a button that says "Save" is much clearer than a floppy disk. I think
a button that says "Link" (or "Insert Link") is much clearer than a globe, a
chain or whatever weird arrow you can come up with.

I never understood why so much software has so many icons. I also think MS got
it right in Office 2007+ with the ribbon, which essentially was made to enable
"more text, less reliance on icons".

I don't know any software that I find easy to use that relies on icons.

~~~
crazygringo
Icons in a toolbar are like keyboard shortcuts: they have to be learned, but
in the end they're more efficient.

And they're not labelled (but usually have tooltips) because of screen real
estate. They're simply faster shortcuts to menu options, or dialog-box
options.

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crazygringo
The big problem with a chain icon is that it depends on English as well,
because a "hyperlink" and "chain link" have absolutely nothing to do with each
other, except that in English they both contain "link".

I agree with the first commented in the blog... an arrow that points to a
page, or an arrow pointing from one page to another.

Kind of makes me feel stupid for never having thought of it, but I'll be using
it the next time I solve this problem!

~~~
Semiapies
Before this blog post, I'd always squinted at those chain icons and wondered
what in the world they were supposed to be.

Bad visual puns do not usability make.

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ed209
I wonder how many of the participants were able to go back and insert a link
without any problems after they were told what the chain icon does?

Icons are really useful once you learn how to use a particular interface. It's
ok not to get it at first as long as you only need to learn it once.

You will always need to educate customers to some extent, what you need to do
is make that learning curve as easy as possible.

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amitutk
No wonder kayak recently replaced icons for "details", "pin", etc., with
simple text.

A/B test could also provide statistics of how well text v/s icon performs for
non-trivial items.

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peng
Why not write "Link" instead of "WWW"? Clearer and to the point.

~~~
zb
Because "Link" only means "link" in English, whereas "WWW" means "WWW"
everywhere the web is.

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wgx
OK, "WWW" is fairly universal, but generally it's best to avoid any text - an
icon should be language-independent.

~~~
addandsubtract
Considering that HTTP is a universal protocol and everyone using WWW in their
URL, I don't see this as a problem.

~~~
Oestrogen
Everyone using WWW in their URL? Look at the address bar right now. :)

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gcb
> Bold: 100%

well, they didn't asked anyone outside of the english speaking world. Where I
came from, everyone knows "N" is for bold text.

Also, having studied cognitive sciences in my free time, the author should
learn soon that icons are not meant for discovery or explanation. They are
place holders. Tokens for your mind to _return_ to effortlessness.

So, the save icon could be an Elephant (my old idea, nobody likes) or a dolar
sign or a clown. it doesn't matter. The user have to explore where the save
is. then the icon will just serve for him to return.

~~~
Kwpolska
Do you have different icons in Word, too?

~~~
kalleboo
Yes. Word even localizes the keyboard shortcuts (e.g. in Swedish office, you
bold text with command-F for "Fetstil")

