RE: [Usability]Re: Toolbar editor

["Derek Lawless" <dlawless ionet ie>]

> Moral of the story it is much easier to look for a label than an icon 
> (notable case is when a symbol is so embeded in society that nearly 
> anyone will recongnize it). Another observation is that even 
> long time 
> users of office apps use probably 10% of the features, but 
> the perceive 
> need of these feature is used to bloat the interface as to make it 
> extremely hard to use, for the 90% of people that only use 10% of the 
> features.
 
The problem isn't that 90% of people use only 10% of the features, it's that those 90% will each use a different 10% of features (to some extent). 

I agree that labels are far more immediately obvious than icons alone. For example, when I'm using Microsoft Word and editing the header and footer on a document, I always have to float the mouse over the icon to figure out what that particular icon does. The problem is that the icons are specific to the Microsoft Word domain, usually out of view until you access that particular feature and therefore not a) immediately obvious or b) easily mappable in your mind to a particular task.

Derek.