Re: [Usability] Re: close icon is misleading

[Dan Zlotnikov <dzlotnik perpugilliam csclub uwaterloo ca>]

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Maxwell Terpstra wrote:

> I strongly believe that removing the icon entirely is a step in the wrong direction. Icons are generally interpreted much faster and more fully than text, and thus make dialogues much easier to use.

Would you please cite some support for that claim? I've done work
on icons, and the problem is that in theory, icons are interpreted
faster, and are cross-lingual. That advantage breaks down spectacularly when
inappropriate icons are selected, inappropriate metaphors are used (and
that is all too prevalent in the computer world), or a complex concept
must be presented. Care to come up with an icon for "create new
template"?

> The problem is finding an appropriate icon that will be interpreted correctly. Because icons are recognized faster than text, their meaning often governs, and may even override the meaning of accompianing text, rather than the other way around.
> The text is fine as it is. It's the icon that's the problem - it's being interpreted as "kill" or "delete," rather than simply "I'm done with you."

Precisely; and the problem of finding an appropriate icon, one that will
be appropriate to *all* levels of technical expertise, as well as *all*
cultures and social context is far from trivial.

We could, possibly, find a solution to this one question, but it's just
an indication of a much larger problem -- icons cannot easily be used to
present complex information structures.

Dan