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Re:The Dilemma of Icons by xp84 on Thursday August 24, 2023 @07:10PM (#37255728)
> How do you devise an icon for “load language model”, for instance?

In the words of Eleanor Shellstrop, "No, it's annoying, and I'm right not to."

Not everything -- not even close to everything -- should be an icon at all.

Looking up at my browser toolbar, I can count several icons that are so abstract that I can't remember what they do without wasting about 4 seconds on each button waiting for a tooltip. Some "UX Designer" thought it was important to not label icons, because of either aesthetic "elegance" or space worries, and as a result they've wasted a 3-inch strip of space with 4 icons that I'll never use. If they'd used text or labeled-icon buttons, they could have fit the top 2 functions. Same situation but even more intense with VS Code. So fun to teach someone how to use this by speaking to them. "Click the button with the three tiny circles connected by lines." "In the Find window, click the button with three uneven horizontal lines." (Obviously that conveys "Find in selection" right? Much better than those 3 words with a checkbox!) Or in that same UI, how about "Letters 'ab' relaxing in a boat made of a knocked-over square bracket" icon?

I don't get it. This absolute trash style of UI wasn't needed in order for us to get advanced and detailed tasks done on 9" 512x384 4:3 screens. I have a 4K screen and plenty of space and every desktop app seems to think the most important thing is squeezing its entire UI into a tiny strip or floating bar.

Re:The Dilemma of Icons by malfist on Thursday August 24, 2023 @07:45PM (#37256007)
I agree with you.

There's a reason so few modern languages are pictographic.

Re:The Dilemma of Icons by WalterBright on Thursday August 24, 2023 @08:06PM (#37256153)
Not only that, modern phonetic alphabets evolved from pictographic text! Today we're devolving back to pictograms.

Apparently, the fear is that some pre-contact tribe in the Amazon rainforest would not understand the labels on a car's controls.

Re:The Dilemma of Icons by WalterBright on Thursday August 24, 2023 @08:03PM (#37256126)
I've been saying this for years, and gained no traction. Finally, a fellow traveler! Have plenty of upvotes!
Re:The Dilemma of Icons by runarberg on Thursday August 24, 2023 @08:23PM (#37256291)
Your browser probably has two toolbars, one as these shortcut icons is probably on either side to your URL bar. The icons to the left of you URL bar, you are most likely deeply familiar with, so familiar in fact you know their functionality better than if they were worded out with “Back“, “Forward”, or “Reload” (this is 100x true if your browser is in a non-english language; even if that language is your native language). The buttons inside your URL bar are probably more complicated, you probably know what one or two do, maybe if they were replaced by text you could get better of a hint, but if you use them ones, you will probably know what they do afterwards just as well as if they were replaced by text. The icons on the right are probably some branded icons with unique functions that you have installed as plugins. You know what they do because of the brand, this would be equally true of text, and finally you have the hamburger (or the vertical ellipsis). At this point the hamburger (or the vertical ellipsis) has pretty well earned its place among the pause icon on your tape-deck (or, more likely, your VLC digital media player) as a universally recognizable icon.

Now your second toolbar is probably hidden by some hover or keyboard action (in my browser it is reviled by a single press of my left alt key) it is all text and has numerous categories such as view, bookmarks, help, tools, etc. inside these categories there are functions such as copy, synced tabs, troubleshoot, etc. (mine is actually in Icelandic and many of those words I’m seeing for the first time and have no clue what they mean).

If your app has only a few functions putting the correct icon next to the function label can help you navigate to your desired function more easily. If your app has a lot of functions (like your browser, or a document processor) all these icons will be an overkill, so you only design an icon for the most essential/most used functions (back, zoom in, boldface, undo, etc.). If loading a language model is an essential feature in your app, which is often performed, it may help users to have an icon next to the label (and sometimes even in place of the label if the label is complicated). Personally for “load language model” I probably would just use the upload icon (commonly an arrow pointing upwards from a bucket).