Re: noicon.xpm?
On Mon, May 12, 2003 at 02:35:02PM -0300, Gustavo Noronha Silva wrote:
> Em 11 May 2003 10:12:49 +0300, Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi> escreveu:
>
> > An icon that only says "this application doesn't have an icon of its
> > own" doesn't help the user at all. It doesn't help the user visually
> > find the application in a menu, since the same icon is used for many
> > unrelated items. What it does do is add to the visual clutter in a menu,
> > which makes things worse, rather than better, and makes pattern
> > recognition harder.
>
> A menu with some icons missing can lead to confusion. It looks inconsistent.
> I remember the usability stufy done by Sun on GNOME some time ago, people
> thought the menu items were toggle buttons. The ones that had icons were
> enabled and so on.
Will adding an icon remove that confusion? Perhaps those people, or
others, will think that menu options with the famous 'swirl' icon are
enabled, while others are not. I mean, the swirl has some kind of motion
in it, so it surely must mean it's activated, right?
As Wichert put it in his .sig a while ago: "make it idiot-proof, and
someone will find a better idiot". There will always be people that will
find a computer a difficult thing to operate, and that will interprete
things incorrectly when first trying to use a system. Changing the
interface won't fix that; it will only move the problem to somewhere
else. However, put someone behind a computer for a while, let him or her
use the system, and once they get accustomed to it, they'll understand
how it works -- provided there's at least some consistency.
I mean, what did you think? That you can understand how computers work
by looking at the interface? Like "Oh, that's a computer? Ah, now I see
how the C programming language works!"
--
wouter at grep dot be
"An expert can usually spot the difference between a fake charge and a
full one, but there are plenty of dead experts."
-- National Geographic Channel, in a documentary about large African beasts.
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