[LINK] Are GUI design standards no longer relevanr?

[Sylvano]

Interesting discussion thread.

In particular, the way in which the notions of standards or agreed symbols
of usage weave in and out of the discussion.

>From what I can find, a document from 1996 is the latest (a work in
progress doc) version that discusses a rationale of icons in the web
context:

"HTML documents often contain small icons to draw attention to interesting
links or to special types of information. For example, the existence of a
sound could be indicated by an icon of a loudspeaker. Gopher and FTP menus
also use icons to indicate the types of links they contain.

Such icons could be created with inline images, but there are several
advantages to incorporating them into future levels of the HTML language
in the form of SGML entities. In that way, they are defined on a par with
other predefined entities, such as the ISO-defined sets of accented
characters or the mathematical and Greek symbols."

http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-wwwicn.html

Anyone have pointers to any more recent efforts.

Sylvano

PS: As a segue to other areas of iconography, I thought I'd include the
following.  Fascinating stuff:

The history of international road traffic signs

"Traffic signs became more important with the development of automobiles.
One of the first modern-day road sign systems was devised by the Italian
Touring Club in 1895. By 1900, a Congress of the International League of
Touring Organizations in Paris was considering proposals for
standardization of road signage. The basic patterns of most traffic signs
were set at the 1908 International Road Congress in Rome. In 1909, nine
European governments agreed on the use of four pictorial symbols,
indicating "bump", "curve", "intersection", and "grade-level railroad
crossing". The intensive work on international road signs that took place
between 1926 and 1949 eventually led to the development of the European
road sign system. The United States developed its own road signage system,
which was also adopted by several other nations. Beginning in the 1960s,
North American signage began adopting international symbols and signs into
its system."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_sign#History


The NSW RTA site has a handy (but far from comprehensive) guide to
international visitors on traffic signs, noting that for example, "A red
traffic light means stop, green means go and yellow means you must stop if
you can safely do so."

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/rulesregulations/internationalinterstate/trafficsigns.html


In another arena, we can look at the safety signs. Some of these are just
wonderful.

"International Signs: These signs are designed according to the
International Organisation of Standardisation's system of recognizable
safety information graphics. They communicate hazards and actions without
the need for words."

http://www.seton.net.au/signs-labels/safety-signs/international-signs.html

 --o--

On Tue, January 19, 2010 1:13 pm, David Lochrin wrote:
> 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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