On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 12:34 PM, Andrew Garrett agarrett@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd like to respond separately to the idea of icons.
On 16/09/2009, at 5:00 PM, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
I'll chip in that I'm not a big fan of icons.
- Heavy icon use means a lot of extra HTTP requests.
Non-issue, I think. If we think that icons enhance usability, and we have appropriate placeholders in place, then we're willing to buy the extra servers.
Are you also willing to change the speed of light?
[snip]
I agree, however, that in most cases, icons should be in some way accompanied by text. Frequently-used icons should have a text
[snip]
I think icons help in decluttering interfaces and keeping them minimalistic. Icons are much easier to find (if they're done properly, of course) than text.
I think above two snips are not especially consistent with each other.
Icons are symbols. Text are symbols. Each their strengths and weaknesses. Text requires a few bytes to transmit and no horrible speed of light limited round trip. It renders consistently, it better obeys the users scaling requests. It's more frequently non-ambiguous, though it can be ambiguous ... "What does ♻ do?". It can be more accessible and compatible with embedded devices.
Graphical icons can be more attractive, they can take less space, they can be more visually distinctive.
Much of the resistance out there there is a lot of bad design out there that requires the user to comprehend a endless stream of inscrutable glyphs, something much easier to do for experts of the software package in question. ... or when sharp-shooter skills are required to hit the icons made tiny in the name of decluttering. But it doesn't have to be that way.
OTOH, I think + and - characters are absolutely excellent indicators for adding and removing set members. I'm not sure what else you'd use in their place which could be any more clear. All the better that they can be represented a simple characters.