
In Defense of the Floppy Disk [video] - Adams472
http://breakoutroom.co/v/652
======
vacri
The gist of the talk is right, but there are a lot of underlying errors. Kids
today know that 'floppy disk' means save because... floppy disk has 'always'
been the ideograph for save. They're not functionally mapping it to the
physical device. It's a bit like people know that 'a' means the first letter
of the English alphabet because... it's an ideograph that means that by
convention - even though in handwriting it's written differently. People have
been trained to understand what that shape means.

There's lots of these errors of understanding throughout the talk, but the
biggest one is the rolodex card icon. It looks like an ID card more than a
rolodex card, since the latter do not have portraits on them. Check it out on
a google image search; some companies make cards for you with their logo on
it, but most cards are blank for your writing, and there is no portraiture.
Presented with that icon, photo-on-the-left, text-on-the-right looks like a
pretty default ID card. The underlying point is right - that the teenagers
recognise the meaning of the icon - the but rationalisation for why is
incorrect.

So why do teenagers understand that floppy means save? Because 'convention'.
Not because "they're smart, and backward-map old technology". If we had a
different icon for 'save', and one company just today started using the
floppy, then no-one would understand it.

~~~
travjones
I think you're adding unnecessary complexity into the analysis. Whether we
call it a floppy disk or refoofoofah, clicking on that icon saved your
document. Thus, we would expect this behavior to generalize given a similar
icon in a slightly different environment/app (stimulus generalization).

Using the word "meaning" here is problematic because it comes with some
intellectual baggage (e.g, connotation). What does anything "mean" really? The
most straight forward answer to me is it "means" what it does. That is,
function is meaning, especially in UX.

~~~
vacri
I'm a bit waffle-ey by nature, but really I mean two points: first, that the
icon means save because we're trained to see it as the icon for save (if we
want to talk unnecessary complexity, you've transformed my 'trained' into
'stimulus generalisation' :D); and second, kids know that the icon is related
to floppy disks because everyone asks at some point "wtf does this have to do
with 'save'", and gets a history lesson. Two separate but related events.

The unnecessarily complexity is what's in the video: the user sees the icon,
recognises it as a floppy disk, understands that the floppy disk is storage
from some prior experience (ha![1]), and then reverse-engineers the question
"why does this icon look like a floppy disk" into "something to do with
storage - probably saving the document to it". It's a very convoluted and
unnecessary cognitive path.

[1] Does anyone really believe that the youth of today learned what floppy
disks were _before_ they learned about saving documents?

~~~
travjones
Hahaha I don't think putting stimulus generalization in parentheses makes my
explanation any more complex. I explained the phenomenon in 2-3 simple
sentences and then I used two words that could substitute for those 2-3
sentences--stimulus generalization.

If you compare our two analyses some of the claims you make cannot be tested
via experimentation, such as "convoluted unnecessary cognitive path." I'm not
sure what that means, how we would determine if the user has gone down that
route, or how we would measure the convolution of a "cognitive path."

Nonetheless, I like this discussion. I think UX is really cool and represents
a great application for applied behavior analysis.

~~~
vacri
That 'convoluted cognitive path' is a qualitative assessment of what the
presenter is describing in the seminar. You don't need some measure of
convolutedness to see it touches a number of different cognitive aspects.

But if it's robust testing you're after, then you should be railing against
the seminar altogether. A self-selected, self-reported study done on the
internet, with zero way to identify demographic accuracy? An assumption that
puerility like 'anus@anus.anus' are only done by teenagers? An assumption that
"it's really easy to tell when someone's messing with you", which just means
you can't detect the subtler trolls? This isn't experimentation, it's a
survey, and it's been interpreted with a lot of cognitive bias, with the
researcher projecting a lot of assumed meaning. It's certainly better than
nothing, but it's not robust at all.

~~~
travjones
First paragraph: You're still making major assumptions.

Second paragraph: I concur, sir!

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mc808
Regarding the hamburger icon, I suspect most people have seen it many places
and recognize that it can be clicked/tapped, but they interpret it as "here be
dragons" which is why it always scores so low on A/B testing. Even knowing
what it's just an innocuous menu, I rarely sneak a peek at what might be
lurking there unless the function I'm seeking isn't to be found anywhere else.

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qnaal
I wonder which of the dozens of scripts on that page looks up and inserts the
youtube embed from godknowswhere

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoHbGVJItMQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoHbGVJItMQ)

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Aldo_MX
TBH, I wouldn't be so surprised that teenagers know that a floppy icon means
save, because they use text processors to do their homework, and at least the
most popular software (Microsoft Word) emphasises so much that particular
icon.

Although being honest, I got impressed by the "tape" icon used for voicemail.

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InclinedPlane
Nothing wrong with the Floppy Disk icon. It's unique, which is all that
matters. It no longer represents a physical thing that people use routinely,
not a big deal. Now, if we could only figure out how to have search and zoom
use different icons...

~~~
function_seven
Some applications use binoculars to indicate search. Yet that could easily me
mistaken for zoom, though...

Iconifying things is hard.

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Adams472
Really interesting talk. Skip to the last 5 minutes for the history, and
appropriate use, of the "hamburger" menu icon.

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qnaal
disappointed she didn't include results for that download icon that looks like
an inbox

also I do think a nicely simplified telegraph key could be an excellent 'send'
or 'communication' icon

