- From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 06:55:22 +0000 (GMT)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
- Cc: james.homme@highmark.com
> > You get the idea. Does anyone know where I can find such icons, and once > having found them, know what they represent? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Looking at my non-computer domestic equipment, there is far more use of text labels than icons, and the microwave, the most icon rich device, sets the icons it uses in context by a text label, with all the icons being based on only a couple of basic themes (number of waves, plus one with snow flakes, for the defrost power). I think that icons often hinder the occassional user of software and I think that the list you've already go well beyond the icons that are sufficiently standardised between applications for most people to have learnt a standard version that they can recognise without looking for tooltips. Icons may help people who use the same software on a frequent basis, although the most frequent users will only use them as part of other cues from their position on the screen (e.g. they will head for a particular part of the tool bar and only use the icon for terminal guidance, or, for, say, return to top icons, they will just recognize an icon at the end of a paragraph, above a rule, or above a title, without really noting the structure of the icon. If the issue is people with learning disorders, I would suggest that it is almost essential that international agreement be obtained on icons and that those icons be graphically clean and make minimum cultural references, and certainly avoid visual puns. Domestic equipment tends to use a very small number of standardised icons (some of which are used in software, but often stylised to the point or unrecognisability). Even then, I think there are a lot of people, of normal intelligence, who would not recognize the eject or pause symbols on CD recorders, or even the power on/off symbol. I think that the computer industry has gone overboard with icons because there are no printing costs for them and they can be done, rather than because they aid usability.
Received on Tuesday, 22 January 2002 02:19:58 UTC