[LINK] Are GUI design standards no longer relevanr?

David Lochrin dlochrin at d2.net.au
Tue Jan 19 13:13:07 AEDT 2010


On Monday 18 January 2010 22:17, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>> [...] the point I am trying to make is that the standard 
>> 26 characters of the English alphabet are a poor form of 
>> standardised communication, no matter what combinations 
>> are put together. Iconography is just as useful, and often 
>> transcends a given language. 
> 
> Written language is merely another form of iconography.

Well no it isn't!  Pictographs have no structural rules to speak of, so they suffer from the problem pointed out by David Boxall in a following post:

> One factor, we decided, is the complexity of the written form.  
> Pictographic writing has a virtual infinity of symbols (the largest 
> Chinese  dictionaries include about 56,000 characters, but the 
> system is open-ended: there is no upper limit to the number of 
> characters).  With all its faults, an alphabet is easier to learn 
> and use than a multitude of graphics.

And a closely related problem is that pictographs can only depict concrete objects easily & clearly, so it's difficult to use them in a context of abstractions.  This is why the use of a "spanner" pictograph is confusing - it doesn't refer unambiguously to either configuring something or fixing it, it's just a picture of a spanner.

"Icons" (a misused word if ever there was one!) work in web design only because the commonly used ones have been around so long that people have learned each one by trial & error.  It's also a big reason why English is so commonly used in very technical discussions.

David

-- 
On Monday 18 January 2010 22:17, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>> Words are best.  This is why civilisation evolved written 
>> language from pictographs.
> 
> Words are best? I love such generalisations, especially since 
> I've spent most of my working life as an editor...
> 
> Why is the 'play' button on virtually every recordable device shown 
> as an enclosed forward arrow? And why does the car headlight switch 
> show an ellipsoidal image with straight lines emanating from it? 
> I can think of a hundred more examples, but the point I am trying 
> to make is that the standard 26 characters of the English alphabet 
> are a poor form of standardised communication, no matter what 
> combinations are put together. Iconography is just as useful, 
> and often transcends a given language.
> 
> Written language is merely another form of iconography.

-- 



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