
McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf] - tosh
http://www.enlaso.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/McDibaks-Nutrition-Icons-Case-Study.pdf
======
commieneko
The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way
to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much.
Especially in technology and science.

Navigation can make good use of icons. Left, right, up, down, start, stop,
these kinds of things can be learned and used widely. Somethings like text
manipulation icons, cursors, insertions, selections, can be used effectively,
but can be surprisingly hard to explain or even describe. Icons for operations
can be really tough. Right now as I look at my computer I can see a library of
arcane and archaic imagery. Telephones, disks, pen nibs, VCR controls
(navigation, sort of), little boxes with arrows, little boxes overlapping,
deadbolt locks, paper airplanes, file folders, fluffy clouds, paperclips, and
of course little hamburgers.

These can certainly be useful clues, but they also can be very confusing. I've
seen paint brushes used to indicate a paint brush in a paint program, but I've
also seen the exact same icon used to indicate a screen refresh. Now I'm at as
much a loss as anyone to come up with a good substitute, although I will note
that I can't imagine any _good_ circumstances when a user needs to be in
charge of refreshing the screen.

These days I'm using a lot of 3D software, and the user interfaces are a crust
of complicated and indecipherable icons. And that's just the top layer of the
UI. Almost all of them rely on a text/label system and hot keys for doing much
of the work. Discoverability is essentially zero and the only way to get good
is to learn the words and the alphabet. Pros end up _hiding_ most of the UI.

Sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures.

The only one of the icons in the link that make much sense is the one with
kcal on it. Unless I dealt, in detail, with these everyday, I'd never remember
what the rest stood for. Something like this may make a lot of sense for the
people that produce the labels, but I'm unconvinced it does anything good for
those who need to _read_ the labels. Word labels in the intended reader's
language is almost certainly the best way to go for actual use.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and
Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was
fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use.

hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… [https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc2c8ac51d6f0e635943c3dc2.jpg)

~~~
sillysaurus3
The only people who feel it's heretical are designers with too little
experience.

Very few people would insist these icons were good design:
[http://i.imgur.com/W6pWibe.png](http://i.imgur.com/W6pWibe.png)

Unlabeled icons are an antipattern in all but a handful of cases.

~~~
TeMPOraL
What you saw isn't actually bad, because - unlike the current icon storm on
mobile - each icon on that screenshot has _a tooltip_. Hovering a mouse over a
button and waiting for a tooltip is one of the most basic computer use skills.
And if you have that, then icons suddenly have a better value proposition.

Not that I personally like icons. I feel I can pattern-match a word faster
than I can pattern-match an icon.

------
ArmandGrillet
Except for calories, I would not be able to understand what means the
information on nutrient icons without having the corresponding word next to
it.

~~~
nicky0
From TFA:

> “We realize that some of the visuals may not already be strongly linked in
> consumer minds to the nutrient they are meant to depict in all markets.”

> “We intend to promote understanding of the images through supporting
> materials in Europe, from web sites to images explained on tray liners and
> via in-store displays,” ...

> “After repeated exposure to these images, customers should eventually grasp
> their meaning, with or without printed labels next to them.”

~~~
Retric
What I found most interesting was not the rather meaningless icon choices, but
the incredibly deceptive dotted line seen on page 12. It's basically anchoring
people in a meaningless way such that not everything seems bad.

Without the line it's like 50% more sodium relative to the number of calories
I am eating. That's terrible. With the line ehh, I guess everything looks ok.

~~~
factsaresacred
The line simply shows one third of your recommended daily allowance (based of
the somewhat popular notion of "three square meals a day" I imagine). If
anything it's useful.

A single serving that breaches the line should be treated with caution, making
it straightforward to understand which foods are contributing
disproportionately to your daily allowance.

~~~
Retric
Consider your looking at fries and it's 30% of your daily sodium intake which
is below the line. But, it's only 10% of your daily calorie intake because
it's a side for one meal. In that context it's sodium relative to calories
that's important or sodium in combination with the rest of your meal. In none
of those cases is a line at 33.3% useful for anything.

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salgernon
Whenever issues like this come up, I like to refer to the WIPP report on how
to identify waste containment plants for 10,000 years.

[http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%...](http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm)

In the end, it was determined that there was no guarantee that a re-
established civilization could grasp what we were trying to say, and that
perhaps just an area earning a reputation as cursed, via attribution of
visitors, would be the best deterrent.

Therefore, I would submit: "These are not foods of honor. No highly held
nutritional facts are described here. Nothing valued is here."

~~~
Camillo
That whole effort was such a waste of time and money. If civilization
collapses, what does it matter if the waste storage site is disturbed? It's
not like it's going to be a threat to humanity. Without advanced technology,
any damage from radioactivity would be limited to the local population.

To extract a large amount of contaminated material and spread it around the
world, you would need an advanced technological civilization, which would then
be able to detect radioactivity. If anything, a big concentration of it may
help accelerate their scientific progress at some point.

~~~
Nition
Well the issue would be that it hurts the local population. And maybe you can
prevent them from getting hurt, if you try to come up with a good warning.

~~~
Camillo
But there's an opportunity cost. You pay a whole interdisciplinary committee
to sit on their asses thinking about it for n weeks (I don't even want to know
how long it took). You could take that money and use it on a million other
things that would result in a larger reduction of people-getting-hurt.

~~~
prewett
What would that be? Those million other things that prevent people 1000, 2000,
5000 years from now from getting hurt? A good warning seems like a great idea,
and low cost, high impact. Problem is, no language has lasted for 10,000
years.

~~~
will_pseudonym
Lightning bolts seems like the best thing to use. They're scary and deadly.

------
owenversteeg
Okay, I've got a crazy idea. Why not create a combination of words that
expresses the thing, instead of these very weird and incomprehensible-at-
first-glance icons?

For example, for proteins: the word "protein" is understandable in English,
French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Swedish. The Russian "belok"
should be understandable to Polish and Russian speakers, and the Dutch
"eiwitten" should be understandable to Dutch and German speakers. Thus,
writing "protein/belok/eiwitten" would be understood by almost everyone.
"kcal" is even simpler and should be understood by almost everyone everywhere
- maybe make it "kcal/calories" for more readability. "salt/sol/αλάτι" should
cover everybody as well. Perhaps throw in the Cyrillic as well if McDonalds
expects a large amount of uneducated Russians in their restaurants.

You could even put the native language in front to prevent any insult to
cultures. Am I crazy, or might this actually work?

~~~
skrause
As a German I would not understand "eiwitten" as "Eiweiß". However, the word
"Protein" is also used in Germany as a regular alternative to "Eiweiß".

~~~
mxfh
Even weirder, according to the chart on page 5, German seems to be the only
one to describe the _kcal_ unit unambiguously as _Kilokalorien_. Where all
others go for calorien (Which could either mean the small _cal_ or large
calorie _Cal_ / _kcal_ ) or completely unitless with describing it as energy
content
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie)

------
grovegames
> “We have accomplished our mission: keep the information simple, easy to
> understand, language-free and top line.”

I find this amusing since the first icon is "kcal"... The information is
perhaps too simple, as none of these really lets me know what they mean.
Without a legend, I wouldn't know what they mean, and if your icons need a
legend, then they really aren't doing their job effectively.

~~~
incongruity
Can all things be solely and uniquely communicated by an icon? I'd expect not
- it's not so different from the collisions you get with TLAs (Three letter
acronyms)

On the other hand, is an icon set successful if you can see the label once and
then keep it straight without labels in the future? I'd say so and I think
this work gets close to doing that.

~~~
azinman2
But if we do that then things could look more like the FDA label and just
literally repeat the words "fat", "protein," etc but translated into the local
language.

~~~
throwaway91111
err, why would that be desirable? That seems like the worst case scenario, not
the best.

~~~
azinman2
Because there's no ambiguity. I have no idea what those icons mean except
'cal' or 'kcal', so if I have to look up a legend then to decode it then I
might as well have the word in place. A giant table of icons & numbers isn't
necessary a better case than a giant table of words that I can read & numbers.

~~~
derefr
I believe half the point was to design for the use-case where you can't fit a
"giant table of words [you] can read & numbers." Where currently the
nutritional information ends up in restaurants on e.g. a sheet on the wall
instead of on your food, or in grocery stores on product bulk packaging (e.g.
cardboard boxes that get thrown away, etc.) instead of on the individual
product units.

Consider that numbers take up relatively-constant amounts of space, but words
for some nutritional concepts in some languages can be _extremely_ long—and
mostly you design for this by just requiring the design-element to have a box-
size of the widest possible text in the widest language, and then padding the
box with empty space almost all of the time.

Removing the words, and just having icons + numbers, allows for a design that
can be very "narrow" in horizontal area, taking up a basically-constant amount
of space with very little padding, allowing it to fit in many places it
currently wouldn't.

~~~
azinman2
I would suggest that if it can't currently fit then it needs to be rethought
if it should be there at all, especially if abbreviations can't be used in
whatever language it's required.

Icons that are impossible to decipher don't improve anything IMHO. Perhaps
they should have gone culturally-specific, something with just the first
letter, or anything else that people might locally understand if the word
absolutely can't be used.

~~~
derefr
Why is it a problem if people can't understand the icons _right now_? The goal
is to slap them on everything, everywhere, for decades. Complete, textual
nutrition labels will continue existing where they already do. People will
make the mental association when they're looking at their food packaging and
see the two kinds of labels, with the same numbers between the two.

Is it a problem that the "floppy disk" symbol for saving documents is _now_
meaningless, since floppy disks are dead? Kids who encounter the icon today,
just learn the meaning by rote. To them, it's an opaque language element
representing a concept—just like, say, Chinese characters. Humans turn out to
be okay at just absorbing the associations of an opaque icon over time,
without the icon _needing_ to be specifically evocative (skeuomorphic) of
anything. It just needs to be unique.

And re: "it needs to be rethought if it should be there at all"—consider, for
example, individual-serving yoghurt snack tubes. What's in them? Who knows?
The info is on the box, not on the tube. Can you "count calories" on a lunch
containing one? Nope, not unless you wrote down the calories from the box when
you were at home. Kind of annoying, no?

~~~
azinman2
Because these icons are for mcdonalds only. If magically they were universally
adopted, then I'd agree. I seriously doubt they will, especially because
they're not particularly clear as they currently stand.

------
amelius
So the icon for "fat" is a tape-measure, indicating that "fat" is the bad type
of calories that makes you fat ... Was this made by designers, or by actual
experts? Or is there malice involved here?

~~~
yalue
I noticed that, too. Unfortunately it seems like it's going to take several
more years to shake off the aggressive anti-fat lobbying and paid "research"
by the sugar industry. Also, I'd imagine McDonalds would be much less willing
to warn its customers against their offerings high in sugar or refined
carbohydrates.

------
Ensorceled
There are some not so subtle emotional connotations to the icons which make
the icons easier to understand/remember but problematic in usage.

Protein is the bottom of a stack -- implies important or less important
depending on your personal view point on stacks Fat is a scale, implying an
association with weight -- a negative link. Carbs are a gas gauge implying
energy -- a positive link.

------
noonespecial
Oh the bike-shedding! The bike-shedding must have been _epic_. You can just
feel it oozing out of every line in that doc.

~~~
belovedeagle
It's not bike-shedding when the actual goal of the committee is to determine a
color for the bike shed.

------
SwetDrems
I frequently travel to non-English speaking countries and am conscious of what
I ingest - the attempt to standardize nutrition labeling on an international
scale is a great effort!

At this point, no, I don't know what the symbols mean without a legend, but
I'm sure at some point in time, not everyone knew that a red octagon on a post
means stop.

~~~
pix64
Learning a few words even if you can't speak them is pretty damn simple.

------
gumby
> “We have accomplished our mission: keep the information simple, easy to
> understand, language-free and top line.”

"language-free" by constructing...a language. They even provide a translation
dictionary!

------
futurix
The only 'icon' I understood what the one with the text in it.

------
laretluval
McDonalds has a clear conflict of interest in the design of these icons for
nutrition information.

~~~
ethagknight
I laughed out loud that they settled on red for protein and green for carbs.
Isn't red=stop, green=go more universal?

~~~
derefr
Relevant line from TFA:

> Some colors were changed because nutritionist feedback identified red with
> protein, yellow with fat and green with energy.

Red, I understand. Muscle fibre (what protein builds, in most people's minds)
is red. Yellow is fat because fat _is_ , itself—in large enough amounts—a
light yellow color. Butter, margarine, liposuction ejecta... etc.

Energy, though, is a bit hard to deduce. Notice that the symbol beside carbs
is a _gas gauge_. Petrol is, in fact, a somewhat-greenish liquid. And I'm
guessing petrol was the subliminal metaphor here. You "fill up on" energy like
a car fills up on gas; and carbs make you go like gas makes a car go.

~~~
cperciva
It's a gas gauge? I thought it was a weight scale, as in "eating lots of carbs
makes you gain weight".

~~~
derefr
I had to work through it by a process of elimination, like a Sudoku puzzle:
the "fat" symbol is definitely evoking "tape measure around the waist"
iconography, perhaps implying (falsely) that "fat is the thing that makes you
fat"—but more likely just putting people in mind of their weight and then
saying "yeah, that stuff, that's what's in this."

Given that, it'd be redundant for the carbs icon to _also_ be about weight.
It's a meter of _some_ sort, though. To me, it's either _temperature_ —or
pressure in a storage tank. Temperature would somewhat make sense, in the idea
that carbs are the simplest thing that the body burns, and eating more carbs
literally makes you hotter. But there are more common icons for temperatue
(e.g. an old mercury thermometer with the teardrop base), so it's probably not
temperature. Pressure it is.

Given that the referent is _carbs_ , what would the storage tank be filled
with? Probably a liquid. Liquid sugar? Sugar isn't green. What's a green
liquid? Most hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are _like_ carbohydrates, and serve
many of the same functions for machines that carbs do for humans.

What's a common hydrocarbon pressure gauge? A car's gas gauge.

~~~
cperciva
Gas gauge still doesn't make sense to me, based on the orientation. Every gas
gauge I've seen has the "empty-full" axis being vertical.

~~~
Rebelgecko
You've never seen a gas gauge with E on the left and F on the right? Or am I
misunderstanding?

~~~
cperciva
Pretty sure I've always seen them vertical. Maybe because I've always driven
Japanese cars?

~~~
toast0
Here's a nice horizontal one for you :)
[https://scoutparts.com/products/photos/18520_237275.jpg](https://scoutparts.com/products/photos/18520_237275.jpg)

------
stevewillows
As a graphic designer, its disappointing to see so many ovals that are meant
to be circles.

------
bufordsharkley
I don't see a good explanation here about _why_ they need to have a universal
set of icons.

If they allowed a greater quantity of icons that work better for each region,
why wouldn't this simply be better?

~~~
noir_lord
McDonald's has made billions from standardizing operations as much as possible
across the world.

> If they allowed a greater quantity of icons that work better for each
> region, why wouldn't this simply be better?

Economies of scale, consistent printed materials.

Rather than have 109 variants of the icons printed on 109 variants of the
packaging you standardize as much of the package as you can, allows you to
print larger volumes and distribute them more easily.

------
taterbase
The protein icon looks like sugar to me

------
skookumchuck
"McDonald’s legal team faced considerable challenges to ensure that none of
the images were already trademarked in another country."

Alphabets solved that problem millennia ago.

------
solidsnack9000
Maybe the solution to iconography needs like this is Chinese characters. Many
of the design criteria -- legibility at various sizes, distinctness,
adaptability to different layouts and colors -- are readily met.

Two character combinations for some of the McDonald's symbology can be kind of
complicated, though:

蛋白 dànbái = protein

脂肪 zhīfáng = fat

醣類 tánglèi = carbohydrates

熱量 rèliàng = calories

~~~
usaphp
Sorry I don't understand your comment, in the first part you propose a
solution, but then you explain why it won't not work.

Icons should be universally distinguishable/recognizable, I as a european do
not see any easy distinction between the characters you just wrote, they all
seem similar to my.

~~~
solidsnack9000
In putting forth my proposal, I also considered an argument against it; but I
did not mean to present it as a conclusive argument defeating it.

I am a mid-western American. The characters do look distinctive to me; but I
took some Chinese in high school, many years ago -- so maybe I am not a good
test case. Part of my reason for posting, was to get feedback from people with
different backgrounds.

------
gcb0
the title "Looks great, but will it work on Styrofoam?" made me take a second
look at the year this was published.

------
elijahbit
anyone think it's strange they don't include sugar as one of the base 5
nutrients alongside carbs, proteins, etc? I for one would like to know how
much sugar my meal has.

------
karolg
This icons don't look like anything to me. Main purpose of icons should be to
replace text and McDonald's failed this time.

------
faragon
I love McDonald's.

------
elcapitan
Everywhere outside of McDonald's, the only obvious icon for "fat" would be a
burger.

------
sgustard
Problem: our food has too many poisons we need to disclose. Solution: better
icons for all the types of poisons! Did anyone think of a different solution?

------
kwhitefoot
It's quite remarkable how isolated from the world the people named in that
document seem to be. It is as if they had never travelled anywhere outside the
US before starting the project. Or if they had they had been stunningly
unobservant.

------
Kenji
This is painful. Fat, why not a bucket of lard? Salt, why not a salt shaker???
These icons are incomprehensible for the educated and the uneducated mind
alike.

~~~
chrisseaton
A bucket of lard? Is lard stored or served in buckets? We buy lard in blocks
where I live. I can imagine drawing a bucket but how do you convey the lard
part of it? Maybe buckets of lard aren't as universal as you think they are
and McDonalds already knows this.

------
vultour
Don't get me wrong, but I just don't see the point in this. This looks like a
pretty in-depth study, why couldn't we use these man hours to create something
of actual value? Why does someone care that some people associated an icon
with "scary alien"? Just put the icon descriptions somewhere on the page and
use circles with a single letter inside for all I care.

~~~
always_good

        > for all I care
    

Just because you don't care about something doesn't mean it's not worth
thinking about, especially when we're talking about international assets.

~~~
blibble
they're nearly all incomprehensible... there's no way anyone would ever guess
most of the meanings

~~~
throwaway2048
you would never guess the meaning of the letter "a" either, does that make it
worthless?

