Usability in Icons

Re:Usability in Icons by skrebbel on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @09:01AM (#2890956)

Icons, in general, are overrated in my opinion. Only if an icon has a very clear meaning to all it can be safely used. Using an icon anywhere else is a big bet and starts with usability issues. E.g. whoever designed the play/pause/stop/previous/next buttons pulled that off, but it's a risk.

I think a button that says "Save" is much clearer than a floppy disk. I think a button that says "Link" (or "Insert Link") is much clearer than a globe, a chain or whatever weird arrow you can come up with.

I never understood why so much software has so many icons. I also think MS got it right in Office 2007+ with the ribbon, which essentially was made to enable "more text, less reliance on icons".

I don't know any software that I find easy to use that relies on icons.

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Re:Usability in Icons by crazygringo on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @10:13AM (#2891210)

Icons in a toolbar are like keyboard shortcuts: they have to be learned, but in the end they're more efficient.

And they're not labelled (but usually have tooltips) because of screen real estate. They're simply faster shortcuts to menu options, or dialog-box options.

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