Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hcr.UUCP Path: utzoo!hcr!ravi From: ravi@hcr.UUCP (Ravi Pandya) Newsgroups: net.works Subject: Re: ICONS: Passing Fad or New Found Wisdom? Message-ID: <441@hcr.UUCP> Date: Sun, 26-Jun-83 16:52:34 EDT Article-I.D.: hcr.441 Posted: Sun Jun 26 16:52:34 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jun-83 17:45:29 EDT References: <2434@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <715@utcsstat.UUCP>, <440@hcr.UUCP> Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto Lines: 72 I have some more detailed comments on the use of icons that didn't get into my previous article because I was more concerned with the issues that Laura raised. So, for what they're worth, here are my thoughts on the issue. A - I am quite pleased to see the use of icons and other visual techniques in computer systems, and I certainly hope (and think) it will continue, for a couple of reasons. To begin, I think that because computers have been communicating using a medium that is highly abstract and symbolized (print) they have been limited in their usage to those who are willing to take the time required to master the many inconsistent, illogical, and complex symbol systems that software designers have seen fit to inflict upon their "lusers" (that term itself holds a wealth of information about why things are as they are). Thus, many people have been unable to take advantage of the "augmentation of the intellect" (to use Engelbart's term) that a well-designed computer system can bestow upon its user, and have been wasting much time with less efficient media; on the other hand, those who have taken the time to learn such systems have been wasting much time fighting with systems that were, in many cases, actively preventing them from doing what they wanted to do. I also think that computer science has suffered greatly from its incestuous nature (e.g. computer systems are designed by computer scientists for the use of other computer scientists who are designing computer systems) in the development of some rather gross mutations (for an excellent example, take a close and critical look at C some day and ask yourself if it can be anything else but a rather virulent form of conceptual cancer), and the rise in the use of graphical and visual techniques may provide some cross-fertilization from the very different, lively, and creative field of graphic design (as well as other related areas). B, C - The cuteness of which you speak is frequently a result of poorly-designed iconic systems -- the concept of "shift lock" has in fact little to do with a picture of a lock, and so the process of establishing a connection is closer to figuring out the punch line of a joke than understanding a piece of visual communication. Effective visual communication is not "cute", it simply gets the message across cleanly and quickly. D - Standards are a rather moot point. I would inevitably pick a creatively, effectively designed system over one that rigidly follows a standard that is a mediocre compromise (as standards tend to be). I think that encouraging good design is more important than establishing a standard, but the latter at least avoids having to learn seventeen different mediocre systems -- with a standard, you only have to learn one mediocre system (and with a good system, you hardly need to learn it at all -- it meshes with the way you think so well that the boundary between you and the system disappears entirely). E - For guidelines on the use of icons, a good source is the well-established body of knowledge in the graphic arts. Icons, because they operate below the symbolic (linguistic) level, are appropriate when they represent a package of concepts that can be grasped almost intuitively without having to really "think" about them at all. So using an icon in the middle of a sentence of words (like those oh-so-cute children's books) is a very ineffective way to communicate, as you have to make a connection between two widely separated modes of understanding. Icons *can* be arranged in structural relationships as words can, but only when the relationships can also be expressed in a simple, graphic, and visual manner -- a dependency network, for example. F - My idea of guiding principles for the use of icons, other than those above, are the same as for the design of any interactive system: solve the most general problem in a way that gives the user the most power with the least conceptual clutter; if you do this, and don't let your design be limited by short-sighted concerns about "efficiency", you can usually create something for which there exists an elegant, general, and very efficient algorithm. You thus end up with a much, much better system and pay a small price in "efficiency" for a large gain in effectiveness. Well, I guess it's time to get off the soapbox now. Good luck. --ravi ...!decvax!hcr!hcrvax!ravi