On 7/3/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Also a lack of comprehensibility, especially
cross-culturally. Icons
are much more abstract than a word, and in particular they're more
context-sensitive: a pen or eraser or anything else you can think of
could just as easily be taken as "comment on this" or "make a personal
note" or "write a message to the authors". Unless you're really
exceptionally clever, perhaps, but with no offense to participants in
making a UniversalWikiEditButton, nobody seems to have been quite that
clever yet.
This isn't a very compelling argument against having an icon. Every
pen or notepad or whatever icon *everywhere* has one of several
possible interpretations. You click the button, you'll find out which
one is right in this context.
There are downsides to icons, but this is a good place for one: we're
short on space, we want to avoid language-specific text, and the icon
will be seen thousands of times over. All of these factors weigh
heavily in favour of an icon.
Steve
PS In looking at MediaWiki now, it's remarkable how few icons we
actually use. The only one I can see is the little "person" icon next
to the username link in the menu. Oh, and the 'this page is protected'
icon, and a couple of others, but they're sort of wikipedia-specific.