It is misguided to expect an intuitive understanding of these symbols. And they are technically signs, not symbols. They are supposed to be learned and the primary requisite for their form is that they are easy to distinguish from other signs. Signs are arbitrary shapes with no innate meaning.
What you are referring to is maybe symbols that have a metaphorical relation or is an analogy. A symbol made to resemble something "real" that the user already knows and understands. An email symbol that looks like an envelope, a document symbol that looks like a piece of paper, you get my drift. The strange looking symbol for the save command is actually a diskette (look it up).
Unfortunately, the vast majority of signs have to be learned and can't be intuited. The letters of the alphabet is an example and so is probably 90% or more of all the "symbols" around us.
Most computer commands are "abstract" in the sense that they don't have a representation in nature that we can easily use. What would the symbol for Stop, Start, Save, Open, etc, be? What would be a good symbol for Power On? Electric spark? A rising sun? Trouble is that these already have an established meaning, sometimes religious, and often a different meaning for different cultures around the world.
The IEC power symbols have a meaning if you are an engineer or coder (the binary I and 0), but most people won't see that, so they act as signs,
What you are referring to is maybe symbols that have a metaphorical relation or is an analogy. A symbol made to resemble something "real" that the user already knows and understands. An email symbol that looks like an envelope, a document symbol that looks like a piece of paper, you get my drift. The strange looking symbol for the save command is actually a diskette (look it up).
Unfortunately, the vast majority of signs have to be learned and can't be intuited. The letters of the alphabet is an example and so is probably 90% or more of all the "symbols" around us.
Most computer commands are "abstract" in the sense that they don't have a representation in nature that we can easily use. What would the symbol for Stop, Start, Save, Open, etc, be? What would be a good symbol for Power On? Electric spark? A rising sun? Trouble is that these already have an established meaning, sometimes religious, and often a different meaning for different cultures around the world.
The IEC power symbols have a meaning if you are an engineer or coder (the binary I and 0), but most people won't see that, so they act as signs,
Morten (user experience guy)