There's a theory that an icon is more recognizable than a word. <humor> That explains why you have to have tool tips so you can hover the mouse over the icon to find out what it does</humor>.
How many programs let you hover over a word to generate a little picture of what the word means?[1]
What brought this to mind was 3.5" floppy disk icon that means "save this file" in a lot of windows programs. How long do you think it will be before new computer users have no idea what a 3.5" disk used to look like even though they know that a bluish square with a whitish rectangle on it means "save this file?"
It is said that icons are more locale-independent than English words. I think we're just inventing a new pictographic [2] language.
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[1] ok, gmail shows you the person's picture when you hover over their name.
[2]The first time I posted this, I spell checked it and absentmindedly let it "correct" pictographic to photographic. I guess I should have just used an icon ;-)
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
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