[LINK] Are GUI design standards no longer relevanr?
David Lochrin
dlochrin at d2.net.au
Mon Jan 18 21:22:27 AEDT 2010
On Sunday 17 January 2010 15:01, grove at zeta.org.au wrote:
> In my Universe, if I see a monkey wrench icon, it means I have
> to fix something, not configure it. I don't suppose anyone reads
> the OSF style guide for app design anymore? Too many big words....
According to The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary a "monkey wrench" is a wrench with an adjustable jaw, but the usual icon is an outline spanner (with a fixed jaw). Furthermore, many people who use computers might not have much familiarity with either wrenches or spanners, let alone their uses. I'll bet the originator of this "icon" was a bloke!
This isn't entirely trivial because it demonstrates two things. First, even simple images can be culture-specific and therefore ambiguous. And second, the pictographs used as "icons" usually depict material objects such as spanners which do not relate in any definite way to abstract tasks. Neither a spanner nor a wrench is commonly used to "configure" something.
Words are best. This is why civilisation evolved written language from pictographs.
I will now dismount my hobby horse.
David
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