{"id":33123,"date":"2013-04-11T10:38:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T16:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/11\/icons-and-the-ever-more-modern-age.html"},"modified":"2013-04-12T06:28:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T12:28:52","slug":"icons-and-the-ever-more-modern-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/11\/icons-and-the-ever-more-modern-age.html","title":{"rendered":"Icons and the Ever-More-Modern Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
I tend to agree with George here — yeah, most folks don't use telephones with two-headed hand-sets any more, and almost nobody uses floppy or removable non-optic discs any more, but icons retain meaning long after their original forms are obsolete, and are tampered with at the designer's peril unless their replacements are utterly clear and at least as universally understood (if not used).<\/p>\n

As well, a lot of the suggestions the writer makes here are both nonsensical (plenty of people recognize headphones from gaming and other home audio use<\/i> ) and hardly more recognizable (a red recording light?) than what she proposes. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It would make as much sense to argue that "Most people don't read music, so using a musical note to represent something related to music won't work." Or "Many people live in apartments, so using a peak-roofed house for 'home' won't be recognized." \u00a0These symbols work because they are already widely used as icons. \u00a0From this, iconography (and ideographs) evolve.<\/p>\n

I would certainly recommend, when designing new<\/i> icons, to avoid obsolete or niche symbols. But this is a case where design by committee may make sense, at least insofar as the more people (in a broad sampling) who recognize a symbol, the better an icon it makes, rather than depending on what's meaningful to an individual designer in their individual life.<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +George Wiman<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A very good example of a design article that appears to have been written without doing much research. The author says no one uses "headphones" anymore, or would recognize a telephone receiver. And she suggests using a USB stick as the icon for "saving" a file, which (in the age of cloud storage and portable devices that don't have USB ports) makes about as much sense as a floppy disk. She recommends a file folder icon that has an Apple logo on it, and an outdated iPod instead of a cassette tape.<\/p>\n

OK, fine, but these skeuomorphisms are in such wide use as icons (long after they are no longer used as actual devices) that I think they're pretty much universal even if a high school student couldn't tell you what they are. Mess with common functional iconography at your peril.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

10 Outdated Symbols to Exclude From Your Designs – DesignFestival<\/a>
\n Times are changing\u2026fast. So fast, in fact, that often web and graphic designers forget that certain symbols or icons that they place in designs may no longer be recognizable nor relevant. Symbols that one generation recognize immediately may be completely unknown to younger users.\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tend to agree with George here — yeah, most folks don't use telephones with two-headed hand-sets any more, and almost nobody uses floppy or removable non-optic discs any more, but icons retain meaning long after their original forms are obsolete, and are tampered with at the designer's peril unless their replacements are utterly clear … Continue reading “Icons and the Ever-More-Modern Age”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,15,47,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-media","category-my-computer","category-writing-and-language"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9709,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/05\/icons_mr_rico_z.html","url_meta":{"origin":33123,"position":0},"title":"Icons, Mr. Rico! Zillions of ’em!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-May-06 11:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"Lots of little mini-icons for your web page, should you have the need ......","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6084,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/05\/25\/mini_icons.html","url_meta":{"origin":33123,"position":1},"title":"Mini-icons","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-May-04 6:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"Fun site of various mini-icons -- arrows and shopping carts and other keen bits -- swiped from other sites as \"jumping-off points\" for web design. Fun, indeed. (via BoingBoing)...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2683,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/17\/creative_juices.html","url_meta":{"origin":33123,"position":2},"title":"Creative juices","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-May-02 10:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"So, do you like the crazy little mini-icons? Should I be working on my day job, rather than screwing around with my blog graphics? Is there any chance that I...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16145,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/11\/05\/dc-icons.html","url_meta":{"origin":33123,"position":3},"title":"DC Icons","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Nov-09 8:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good is posting, 3-4 at a time, his pick for the 75 most iconic DC comic book covers of all time (well, to date). So far, this mix doesn't have too much to debate about (maybe the Teen Titans and Swamp Thing entries --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/gp_crisis7.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8847,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/06\/google_talk.html","url_meta":{"origin":33123,"position":4},"title":"Google Talk","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Apr-06 10:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"New version of Google Talk out, mostly mild tweaks to the interface: You can now add icons for yourself. A minor tweak that the purists will likely hate, but fun...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6883,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/12\/11\/iconic_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":33123,"position":5},"title":"Iconic","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 11-Dec-04 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a very cool personal portrait-icon generator. 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