grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (06/28/83)
#R:sri-arpa:-243400:uiuccsb:12800001:000:594 uiuccsb!grunwald Jun 27 15:07:00 1983 I would agree that you're being somewhat cynical about "cutsey" icons. I think that Icons have a definite place in modern computer systems. Since they are pictorial, they are not language specific. Anyone comming from a Western heritage would be able to recognize the "garbage can" icon on the Apple Lisa, and coule probably infer that that is where one puts things that one doesn't want any more. The ability to cross language, if not cultural, barriers with icons is fairly important for computer vendors (not to mention the people who have no language, as laura pointed out so well).
warren@ihnss.UUCP (06/28/83)
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
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (06/29/83)
A true story: When we got our new stove several months ago, I plugged it in and it started making a horrible noise, although it was clearly turned off. After several tries at figuring out what was wrong, I finally looked through the manual carefully... only to discover that it wasn't off after all, but set to self-clean. (The noise was the buzzer telling me to latch the door.) Canadian General Electric appliances now use these TOTALLY unintelligible and non-intuitive symbols on all their appliances. The symbol which I thought was "off" was an orange rectangle, where the rest of the symbols are white. But no! "Off" is indicated by a circle with a broken vertical line in it (something like the or-bar '|' on most terminals). The rest of the symbols take a fair bit of decoding. Our other CGE appliances have the same symbols, but at least there are explanations in English next to them (or, in the case of the dishwasher, just inside the door as you open it). Now, maybe there are lots of non-English/French people buying appliances in Canada, but surely your average immigrant will learn the word "OFF" soon enough. Sooner than he will guess what all the funny symbols mean, anyway. Dave Sherman Toronto (yes, I have learned to use the stove....)