
Redesigning the Save Symbol - stevewilhelm
http://branch.com/b/redesigning-the-save-symbol-let-s-do-this
======
bitwize
A "phone" these days is usually, more or less, a small box with one glowy
side. Yet these self-same devices, to represent "phone", use the silhouette of
the handset from an old Bell Telephone landline model, thirty years after
those phones went out of fashion. To even the younger generation, that shape
_means_ "phone", even if it doesn't look like a phone.

Similarly, the D-pad from a NES controller -- or worse, an Atari 2600 joystick
-- is often used to represent or signify "video games".

"Home" is based on tract housing from the 1950s; yet even if home to you is an
apartment, condo unit, palace, or boat, that icon still means "home".

There's another example. I just recently bought a Moleskine with an abstract
graphic image of an audiocassette on it. There's no real reason for this; it's
very hipster. It's sort of "celebrating the audiocassette" because to an
entire generation of people, the cassette -- and its shape -- meant music
(especially music on the go, like in a Walkman). Youngsters connect to it too,
in a "retro" way. The same will be true of the floppy disk icon. No one uses
it now, but it was ubiquitous that -- like the audiocassette or the
distinctively shaped horn of a Victrola phonograph -- its shape has become
semi-permanently associated in our culture with its intended use.

~~~
krapp
Icons representing 'obsolete' technology work as ideograms because the form
factor of that old technology was unique enough to express a concept in a few
pixels, whereas everything now is just some form of a nondescript box which
chances are does multiple things. I ran into this problem a couple of years
ago when I had to design a television graphic for my company... you know how
difficult it is to convey "television" without rabbit ears? I wanted to add
them just because that said "this is a tv."

Icons don't have to keep up with the actual technology whose function they
represent... they just have to be immediately recognizable.

~~~
TrevorJ
This is a good point - we've moved to a place where function no longer needs
to dictate form to the same extent that it once did. A cassette tape was
shaped the way it was in order to fulfill specific mechanical requirements.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Maybe I'm getting old, but seeing conversations like this irritate me. All I
see in that wall of text are activity indicators, upload icons, and "TO THE
CLOUD!!!" icons.

Internet Comment Designers seem to think that skeuomorphism (a word they love
using to tell the world 'LOOK, I KNOW BIG WORDS SO I MUST BE GOOD AT THINGS')
must always be a bad thing...as if using the icon to save as a floppy disk is
somehow less confusing to the average person than a circle with line, space,
longer line, space, shorter line, space, rest of circle is somehow more
intuitive.

People use & all the time and don't know what it means. Hell, @ doesn't even
have a clear definition! But people know what it means, and that's what
matters.

How come people don't use a hard disk as a save icon? How come the icon of a
CD didn't catch on as a "Burn" action?

Its not because these actions are any less actionable than "saving" to a
floppy disk. Its because you can clearly tell WHAT a floppy is compared to
other donut looking objects, and that is what matters!

You don't need to flatten the UI or make something you think looks like an IEC
symbol (protip: the symbol you all use for on/off is IEC 5009 symbol for
"standby"). All you need to do is make sure that the symbol is unique enough
that it can't be confused for anything else. Having the added back story that
it used to "be" something else makes it trivia fodder in 50 years.

Yes, Apple is stupid for making their calendar look like a book. No, I am not
a knuckle-dragging cave man for thinking a floppy disk is a good symbol for
"commit to disk."

Get off my damned lawn.

~~~
jacalata
Absolutely. Anyway, if skeumorphism is bad, and the floppy icon is so
unrecognisable as to be abstract (which appears to be the 'problem' these
designers think needs solving), doesn't that mean the floppy icon is now good?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Anyway, if skeumorphism is bad, and the floppy icon is so unrecognisable as
> to be abstract (which appears to be the 'problem' these designers think
> needs solving), doesn't that mean the floppy icon is now good?

The short answer is "No."

The long answer is that the skeumorphism is bad argument is generally that
trying to imitate some kind of physical analog of the computerized process you
are doing isn't an effective way of presenting a UI, in part because it
imposes additional constraints that aren't native to the medium you are using
(limiting your ability to fully utilize the medium you are using) and that it
relies on experience with the particular physical analog to provide user
understanding of the UI.

An icon that is functionally abstract because it references something that is
outside of most users experience would be an example of the problem, not
something that somehow flips it on its head and so becomes good.

(OTOH, the use of the floppy-disk-image-as-save-icon is so ubiquitous in
software that it is probably a useful image that is well recognized, but
that's neither because it originates as a skeumorph or because it is abstract
now, but because it is ubiquitous in the digital realm, independent of its
origin or current relation to user's non-digital experience.)

~~~
rhizome
In other words, it doesn't matter that it's the image of "a 3.5in floppy
disk," it matters that that's a symbol that tells people "save."

------
fusiongyro
I think this is something that should be done, but I sense that fragmented
circles are more of a "flat" reaction to iconography of obsolete technology.
But obsolete technology generally makes for good, intuitive icons. I don't
think the up and down arrows are especially good at conveying things either,
especially since they'll probably be paired with other up and down icons that
mean other things (like disclose menus, scroll, etc). Maybe the new generation
has never seen a floppy, but they also haven't seen a magnifying glass, an
hourglass, or a rotary phone, yet they've managed to learn them as part of the
visual vocabulary of computing.

I'm not a designer, but I think most of the ideas on display here are fashion-
forward dead ends.

~~~
zwegner
> I'm not a designer, but I think most of the ideas on display here are
> fashion-forward dead ends.

This... It seems like these are "design for the sake of design", and doesn't
take into account that the vast majority of users really don't care, as long
as they know what the button does--which these examples don't really convey.

------
grinich
App should just save automatically.

Usually when people use save, they actually want to take an action. (ie:
exporting the file somewhere, sending it to someone, etc.)

This thread should focus on identifying those actions and finding more
universal ways to make them ubiquitous.

What if there was a universal "send this" or "invite someone to collaborate"
button?

~~~
kstenerud
> App should just save automatically.

Oh god please no. Apps that save automatically are the worst idea ever. I want
to be able to make exploratory modifications, and then commit to disk AT A
TIME OF MY CHOOSING. The computer doesn't know what I'm thinking, and it can't
tell the difference between "messing around" content vs "serious" content.

I can see it now: I hit undo a bunch of times to get back to a previous state,
copy some content that I wanted to bring back, then redo a bunch of times to
get back, except I fatfinger it and hit paste by mistake. Now my whole redo
path is gone, and I can't even reload to the state I was at before hitting
undo thanks to the braindead program that "helpfully" saved my document behind
my back.

Or even worse: I make some exploratory changes, then decide after changing a
LOT of things that it won't work. The app crashes/the computer dies, whatever.
I reopen the app and it's saved all the changes I don't want anymore. Maybe if
I'm lucky it would have saved an undo path (unlikely), but even then, how far
do I have to undo to get back to the sane state I was in?

Save means "I'm sure this is what I want. Persist these changes".

~~~
csihar
Personally, I think in a perfect world there would be a more widespread
distinction between "save" (something that happens automatically whenever
changes are made, to "save" the data from some unexpected calamity like power
failure) and "commit" (what you're talking about, which most people think of
as "saving"). I doubt it would realistically catch on any time soon outside of
tech circles, though, due to the confusion it could cause the average user -
"New, open, print, commit, exit... now where the hell is the damn save
button?!"

~~~
kybernetikos
Actually, it's the concept of 'save' that is unintuitive. The EPOC systems
just kept your data, and it's one of the nice features that sublime gives you.
In an ideal world, a document would keep its entire change history as a graph
(not just a single line), and you wouldn't 'save' a copy, you'd name a
particular revision of it so that it was easy to get back to later.

------
nglevin
I always wondered why nobody else seemed to follow the lead of Lotus 1-2-3 for
Windows. Use "save" and "load" icons that portray arrows pointing to and from
folders [1]. Never have to worry about a floppy again.

Turns out, these guys just did that. Except with documents [2] and clouds [3]
instead of folders. Guess iOS did away with those.

[1] - As seen in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lotus_1-2-3_9.8_Windows.p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lotus_1-2-3_9.8_Windows.png)
, upper left corner

[2] - [http://branch.com/b/redesigning-the-save-symbol-let-s-do-
thi...](http://branch.com/b/redesigning-the-save-symbol-let-s-do-
this#Z2u5wdLOzRA)

[3] - [http://branch.com/b/redesigning-the-save-symbol-let-s-do-
thi...](http://branch.com/b/redesigning-the-save-symbol-let-s-do-
this#WJZry_lYo-E)

~~~
fyi80
but wtf is a "folder", now?

~~~
hkmurakami
Don't people still use manilla folders and hanging folders to keep records of
various medical/insurance/tax/legal papers at home? (these industries haven't
exactly digitized their workflow)

(I certainly do)

~~~
jacalata
I do. My sister, however (not in tech), has a cardboard box with papers in it
- and she is considered The Organized One by all her friends.

~~~
drakeandrews
This sounds familiar. Most of my friends (both in an out of tech) have
similar. We also often have a second box full of folders that we're One Day™
going to use to organise our important pieces of paper into.

------
Rezo
Google Docs doesn't have a Save function, instead it has an endless revision
history.

Which makes me think... if I'm coding and the project is in git repository,
why am I still manually saving all the time? Why not automatically save every
change I make as a revision, and provide me with endless undo (even if I quit
the IDE). "Save" could now instead do a git rebase & squash to produce a
neater commit from the many intermediate revisions.

------
joeld42
What's so bad about a floppy disk icon? Even if the kids today don't know what
that is, they still know the icon means save. We recognize a pawnbroker's
symbol or a barber pole without knowing where they came from.

~~~
marssaxman
Funny, I have never before seen or heard of the "pawnbroker's symbol". I
looked it up and I guess you mean the three circles hanging from a line. Is it
a regional thing, I wonder? Here in the western USA, the only sign I would
associate with a pawnbroker is "dingy neon". I wonder if the traditional sign
is still used in areas which had pawnbrokers before the invention of lighted
signage.

~~~
epo
Certainly British, and probably European, usage. And yes, it predated
electricity by quite some time, in fact said
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnbroker>) to date back to the origins of
banking in Italy.

------
moonboots
I prefer text to icons. Text has less ambiguity with the additional benefits
of being easier to implement and faster to load (at least for html/css). An
example is the new Safari [1] and Chrome devtools, which both stem from the
old Safari devtools [2]. The new chrome devtools removes the top row
navigation icons, leaving only text like 'Elements' and 'Resources'. It's
cleaner and tighter than the old UI without sacrificing usability. Safari 6
removed the text and kept the icons. I find myself constantly lost and cycling
through the icons. Admittedly, I only use Safari devtools to debug safari
issues.

Back to the original topic, I think auto-save and undo obsolete the save
button.

[1] [https://developer.apple.com/technologies/safari/developer-
to...](https://developer.apple.com/technologies/safari/developer-tools.html)

[2] this site has chrome screenshots, but it's what safari 5 dev tools looked
like: [https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-
tools/docs/ov...](https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-
tools/docs/overview)

------
thorum
Alternatively, we could make autosave ubiquitous so the symbol is no longer
needed.

~~~
ori_b
Only if saving also provides infinite undo, and the ability to save to
_multiple_ locations.

Saving is often used by non-developers as a poor man's branching and version
history.

~~~
thorum
But like what you're getting at, we already have concepts like "branch" and
"undo" and "version history" and "publish" for other uses of the save button
and most of those already have their own, more intuitive icons. So why not do
away with "save" as something that has to be done manually and emphasize those
other actions with their own buttons.

------
Jach
It doesn't need to be redesigned. I hate this trend of getting rid of very
clear text and using nothing but "intuitive" icons that are "universally"
understood, and only sometimes making the text available on hover/hold. Using
both icon and text is fine, but text is way more important and unambiguous and
should always be visible. Especially with the resolution and screen real
estate modern displays have.

------
lifeisstillgood
I disagree that no-one is ever likely to replace a floppy icon - the argument
is based on the idea that everyone today knows what the floppy icon means.

 _everyone_ is only 1 billion people with a USA influenced cultural history
and a Microsoft influenced PC history.

FirefoxOS stands a good chance of reaching a new billion people, and _some_
mobile device will, and what will the chinese-ubuntu choose for save? There
are going to be 10bn people alive in 2050 (I hope!) and 9bn of them have not
seen a floppy disk icon.

It _might_ be that we stick with the icon and everyone starts spelling
skeuomorphism wrong. But is it likely?

So I quite like the discussion shown here. There are a couple of good ideas.
And the new devices, then new _mental models_ of synching local and remote
storage, are going to need new iconography. Will these guys do it? Only if
they buy a domain, produce high quality glyphs with open discussions, make it
free and blog about it incessantly - then maybe when the next big thing comes
along, they might just reach out and take the easy icon set. That would be
nice.

------
Detrus
The save symbol doesn't need to become universally known like radiation and
biohazard. The concept won't need to be known in another decade.

~~~
krapp
I hope (and believe) you're wrong... I want to have the option to chose when
and where to save my work. Not having this choice seems to imply a future in
which no one has any real control over a filesystem or their files.

... which I suppose one can see coming from a mile away, but I really hope it
doesn't become ubiquitous.

------
shanmoorthy
In my concept of the future there will be no "Save", but instead any
input/document will be passively cached locally in volatile storage, and
archived incrementally on a non-volatile medium... without any active user
input. In which case you'd only need an icon for "New", "Open" and "Delete".

If you're talking about representing a change of state (volatile to non-
volatile), then borrow from Chemistry where a change from liquid to gas is
represented by an arrow up, and a change from liquid to solid is represented
by an arrow down. You could use the Unicode character U+21DF, a symbol that's
already on every computer. Inversely you could use U+21DE to indicate "Load".

------
zyglobe
Do you really think about floppy disks when you save something? Most people
don't. That's what makes it an effective symbol. You don't have to think,
decipher, or read. Everyone has learned it and has become more productive by
it. Why change that? Would it be wise to modernize traffic symbols as well? If
you're going to try to force users to learn something new, there better be
something in it for them (I don't see what that would be) and you would need
just about every developer to agree upon and use this new symbol (good luck),
otherwise you've pretty much asked Christians to change the cross symbol to a
new modern torture device.

------
jspiros
Is this necessary? We use plenty of symbols the origin of which have since
become obsolete and mostly forgotten. Almost everyone is familiar with the
meaning of arrows, for example, but not many people are immediately conscious
of how it derives its shape from an archery context. The shape has transcended
its origins and now simply refers to a context; the same can be true of floppy
disks for save (and I'd argue, already is, as I'm sure there are young people
now who are aware of what the symbol means but might not be familiar with its
originating technology).

------
pubby
What's next, redesigning half of the English language because it contains so
many words derived from Latin?

It doesn't matter where icons, words, or any identifier comes from so long as
everyone understands it. If you're creating a new icon then it's a good idea
to make the design intuitive as this improves its chance for adaption, but
doing so to an ubiquitous icon such as "save" is just counter-productive.

------
n3rdy
This must be what older generations felt like when music kept getting
redefined by younger generations.

Here I am, screaming at my screen "Why can't you whipper snappers just leave
it the way it is! I like the floppy disk icon! This is the devils work I tell
you! You're going to ruin the internet!!"

------
tekromancr
I thought it was interesting. Not because I think the save button needs a
redesign, but because it was fun to watch the design process. I think that
everyone that is genuinely complaining in these comments need to chill out a
bit. They admitted that the whole thing was academic.

------
Arzh
The floppy disc rendering is already a timeless symbol for the 'Save' action.
The first thing you think about when seeing it is 'Save' not 'I need to get my
disc out.'

Also most apps save automatically and usually use an animation of something
spinning, so you're already a tad too late.

------
Aloha
This seems to me to be like proposing a square wheel because round ones are
unattractive.

If you have a universal cultural idiom, I think it means you won the war of
conveying a concept.

------
endlessvoid94
I think the idea of "save" may even go away. For example, there's no save
button on google docs.

Computers should never lose your work, you shouldn't have to instruct it.

~~~
Udo
Yet there is value in being able to decide when a versioning point should be
created. This is actually a huge annoyance for me when I'm using Apple's apps
that are "always and continually auto-saved". Yes, automatic integrity is nice
(when it works), but not being able to make certain decisions about a file's
state is pretty limiting.

~~~
endlessvoid94
That's certainly true, but I'd argue for 99% of the time, automatic saving is
what you want.

~~~
chiph
The problem is that there hasn't been a good interface to represent that
change history, which will allow me to prune dead ends, and visually identify
the version that I want to use to start again from. I can't identify that
revision as "the one from 1:52 pm" because I don't know when the auto-save
happened. What I do know is that I want the one where I used the phrase 'When
Sally Met Harry' in the third paragraph, but not the one where I used it in
the fourth paragraph.

Remember - it has to work for non-technical users, so saying "just make it
work like Git" won't fly.

------
mhuffman
I think they should get away from the word "save" and focus on the word
"store". It abstracts the final location, and would be easier to "icon-ize".

------
weix
Using animation is a good idea, but do we really need a redesign?

------
mjcohen
Use a drawing of the universal media, punched magnetic tape.

------
grannyg00se
"The Save symbol is years overdue for a rethink."

Why?

------
fyi80
> How can this immensely vital symbol be communicated in a timeless form so we
> never have to go through this again?

How about by picking a form that will always be in the past, and already well-
documented and broadly understood, instead of trying to guess which of today's
fads will be remembered?

