Re:The Decline of Usability
by a1369209993 on Saturday April 18, 2020 @01:01AM
(#22905445)
Actually the floppy disk made perfect sense when I first saw it: "we're going to do something involving the floppy disk, and there's a put-onto arrow superimposed over it" (the load-file icon had a take-off-of arrow). It makes less sense now, but only because computer storage no longer has a single, iconic (heh) form factor.
ZXCV is positional, [C]opy having a nice mnemonic is more of a happy coincidence than a design decision in it's own right.
> ZXCV is positional, [C]opy having a nice mnemonic is more of a happy coincidence...
ZXCV is actually half positional/mnemonic, half graphical-as-letters, a bit like old-fashioned smileys: X for cut looks like opened scissors, and V for insert looks like the downward-pointing “insert here” arrow-like mark editors and teachers use(d?) to scribble onto others’ texts.
Every single icon that makes sense to you now (the floppy disk, the binoculars...) do so because you learned them a long time ago; it's funny how you can now find YT videos that explain where that weird blue icon for the "save" function comes from.
The images are just a mnemonic device - in the sense that the sign is partly related to the meaning (the binoculars could very well mean "zoom in" in an alternative world). Certainly a stronger connection works better because it helps to remember, but they are not meant to help with "understanding" what the button does.
It is the same deal as with keyboard shortcuts. ctrl+S is Save, but you know that ctrl+V is Paste and it has absolutely nothing to do with spelling.