Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/26/83; site ihnss.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!mit-eddi!mit-vax!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxa!houxm!ihnp4!ihnss!warren From: warren@ihnss.UUCP Newsgroups: net.works Subject: Re: ICONS: Passing Fad or New Found Wisd - (nf) Message-ID: <1574@ihnss.UUCP> Date: Tue, 28-Jun-83 08:25:27 EDT Article-I.D.: ihnss.1574 Posted: Tue Jun 28 08:25:27 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 29-Jun-83 10:41:40 EDT References: <2324@uiucdcs.UUCP> Organization: BTL Naperville, Il. Lines: 23 Several years ago, I first drove a Japanese car and noticed that all of the controls were labled with "cutesey" symbols. It did make a certain amount of sense, and since then I have seen many cars with the controls labled similarly, but it took some getting used to. It took training to recognize that the thing that looks to me like a saftey pin with a dangling thread is really a smoking cigaret, and the baseball bat standing on end with the thin horizontal lines accross it tells me that my engine is overheating, or that the shower head turns on my lights. I suspect that pictorial symbols will indeed come to computing. Most keyboards I know of lable the cursor keys with arrows, not with words. Yes, it would be nice if they chose symbols that people could understand more easily than a lock for shift-lock, but I doubt it matters much. I doubt that many people would figure out what the "caps" and "num" keys were likely to do on my hp 2621 without trying them at least once. -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH x2494