Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 13:14:28 +0200 (MET DST) From: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey) To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Chat) Subject: Icons (was: FreeBSD keyboard) Message-ID: <199607151114.NAA04572@allegro.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <199607140713.JAA15291@uriah.heep.sax.de> from "J Wunsch" at Jul 14, 96 09:13:34 am
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J Wunsch writes: > > As John Fieber wrote: > >> It has nothing to do with typing ability. It has everything to >> do with the basic fact that humans are far better at >> recognition than recall. Recall may be more efficient, but only >> comes after a great time investment in memorization. For >> infrequent users, or infrequent tasks, recall will never be as >> efficient as recognition. > > The problem arises, however, that even for frequent users of such a > recognition-based system, the efficiency cannot grow beyond a certain > point. Indeed. You can learn it in a day, and you spend the rest of the time you use it paying for doing so. > When looking at the icon and toolbar etc. forest of the typical > application of these days, i still believe it's rather done for optics > than to improve recognition. I usually get the impression that even > the infrequent winloose user has about the same idea about the > particular meaning of these 25 icons in the toolbar as me, who does > not know anything about these programs at all. I think the icon approach has outlived its utility. Once upon a time, when windows-oriented programs had limited utility and people didn't demand too much in the way of functionality, and icons were a convenient way to help them. Now I suspect they confuse more than they help. Certainly I share your hatred of these cluttered "modern" screens. Greg
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