For GUIs, Just the Right Degree of Realism 256
mr crypto writes "User interfaces make copious use of pictures and symbols, but how abstract should images be? Lukas Mathis has an interesting blog entry on where to draw the line."
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For GUIs, Just the Right Degree of Realism
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The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford
Confusing icon practices (Score:5, Interesting)
Just yesterday, I was commenting on twitter about how the new icon sets for youtube videos are rather confusing. It took a bit of staring to figure out what these icons [suso.org] do. Nobody was able to guess the right answer. C_64 had the funniest answer though by saying "You can only go 8 bits forward or 8 bits to the left ?"
It depends where you want to draw the line. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I'd love to do is make a theme that looks like the 1960s version of futuristic computers and space ship aesthetic from the movie 2001, with light-bulb lit buttons of different colored plastic, lots of milled metal highlights and dark plastic everywhere.
I am icon-impaired... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish there were more studies about how some people (such as myself) simply cannot deduce the meaning of icons without a lot of effort. Some of the "meaningful" icons presented in the article still don't mean anything to me. I'm constantly hovering over the same icons to get the "tooltip" to tell me what I'm looking for. CLI? No problem...the command I need is instantly in my grasp. GUI? I'm forever having to stop, pause, and process icons to figure out what the hell they actually mean. GUI menus with words instead of icons are the best for me in the GUI world: Instant recognition, no extra processing steps required.
Am I the only icon-impaired person out there?
Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score:4, Interesting)
That guy is 100% right, but there isn't anything new, let alone newsworthy in that post.
But it has a few nice examples.
On the other hand, that guy completly misses the intresting points: How did we end up with a "house" as an icon for your personal files* or a "cog" as a symbol for additional commands in the first place? A Leaf for a Web-Editor? A Trumpet for Network Connection? Lighthouse for a webbrowser?
* That one sounds easy for an IT-pro who knows that the concept of a "home directory" is older than icons - but that only makes this meaning of "home" an old one, and not an intuitive one.
Re:Redundancytition (Score:2, Interesting)
In my experience, if you write something just once, you'll get a slew of responses which are basically strawmen. Readers will read only what they want to read, and unless you beat their heads with the main point, they'll miss it.
In case there's any confusion, I'll repeat myself. If you say it once, readers will miss it. Maybe not you, but enough to be annoying. So, you say it multiple times, so the slow people can catch up.
You're not alone (Score:4, Interesting)
Icons are used for two purposes - they generally take up a fixed number of pixels that generally use less space than text and they look pretty. The first reason is moot since even the cheapest display devices can spit out high resolution images with lots of space for text. And even if there isn't enough space, text labels can always be hidden via collapsible menus. Text can also be scaled to larger and smaller sizes as needed. The second reason is probably one of the biggest selling points for operating systems with pretty GUIs, e.g. Mac OS X. But with text labels, there's far less ambiguity about what they mean.
Of course, there are situations where icons would be preferable. If you can't translate descriptive text for buttons in other languages, then an icon might be more convenient to use. And of course, they look good. I doubt the iPhone would sell so well if the pretty icons were replaced by text.
Re:It depends where you want to draw the line. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds awesome! Don't think I'd want to use it for any length of time though...
I am surprised at the lack of interesting interfaces though. Windows, OSX and most Linux distros are all basically variations on a theme - you've got your program windows, your menu (at the bottom or at the top, or if you're really feeling wild at the side!) and that's about it. Everything is grouped either vertically or horizontally - obviously curves are harder to program, but surely not that difficult? How about a menu that radiated out from (for example) the start menu, with groups of icons on each 'spoke'? I'd like that - one spoke for internet apps, one for media, one for development tools. Windows key+1 for one spoke, windows+2 for another...
While I'm on the subject does anyone know of any interesting interfaces? I remember trying lightstep years ago...ran like a bag of shit and the interfaces mostly sucked but there were some good ideas.
Re:Human language is real enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue is, why should the user need to learn a new language for each application?
I think the real underlying problem is that each software engineer has his own set of rules as well. Behavior of a specific function can be slightly different in one program than it could be in another program. If we use the same textual and visual representation for the function in both programs, the user would expect the exact same outcome, while that may not be true.
Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score:3, Interesting)
Who writes these things? All the "UI experts" I've seen seem to take their field in isolation of everything else, which completely defeats the purpose of UI planning. The overall concept is pretty simple, you have to figure out a way to connect the abstract model of your software with something tangible for the user. This requires deep understanding of what problem the software is trying to solve, and the user's prior experience and expectations. You can't get around that by applying some magic formula to arrive at the "perfect" UI. Take your one size fits all t-shirts and get the hell out.
Re:It depends where you want to draw the line. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think this is actually one of the problems with Linux interfaces. They get so stuck on the THEME and not much on user usability.
When Mac OSX first came out, it was bright and colorful. Icons were eye popping. Over the various iterations, Apple toned down the interface. It went from candy striped to stainless steel to steel gray, icons became simpler, and color was more carefully used. The early Aqua theme did its job of making the Mac look eye popping fresh compared to Windows. XP even took the cartoony color schemes, to the heights of uglitude.
However, although Mac fanboys whined about the changes in Aqua (and toning down the colors), it actually improved the interface. The simplification of the icons improved readability. The reduction of color saturation improved the look and made the interface less distracting.
We must keep in mind the purpose of the GUI is not to create really cool looking desktops, but to help the user navigate. You notice that the Mac OSX interface has no concept of themes. You can't change the skins of the windows. You can't edit the look and feel of the menus. (I don't think you can even change the fonts). The taskbar can only be on the bottom or side. Yet, the Mac OSX interface is the standard that other GUIs try to meet.
The Mac's desktop's trick is not to be a personal expression of the user, but to help the user navigate. Retro style windows and desktops, Geek themes, and all the fancy 3D icons do none of that.
Re:The Traffic Cone (Score:3, Interesting)
People close to the VLC project, at l'Ecole Centrale Paris collected traffic cones [nanocrew.net]. Why? You might ask why Bertie Wooster collected policeman's helmets. If you want to make it sound less silly, you could probably argue that the videolan client manages the traffic of numerous media streams, but it's a strain.
Re:The Traffic Cone (Score:4, Interesting)
One day, people from the VIA association (VIA is a students’ network association with many clubs amongst those is VideoLAN.) came back drunk with a cone. They then began a cone collection (which is now quite impressive I must say). Some time later, the VideoLAN project began and they decided to use the cone as their logo.
http://www.nanocrew.net/2005/06/23/vlc-cone/ [nanocrew.net]
Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score:3, Interesting)
> I'm amazed that so many people on slashdot are so fervently anti-good-design anything.
No. We just don't treat self-proclaimed experts as if they were the Pope.
There are a lot of academic disciplines that sound "high and mighty" that are total BS.
Anything that deals with human nature goes to the top the list (of flimflam).
Re:The Traffic Cone (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps because you are not likely to mistake it for anything else.
This is what a trademark is supposed to get you.
If it's too "intuitive" then it's probably not really a good trademark.
Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well I'm in one of those disparaged academic disciplines that is constantly lampooned around here, and all I'm saying is that just because you aren't in chosen field X, doesn't mean that X is "total BS" like software development tends to consider those of us in HFE/Graphic Design/HCI, etc. (Good thing I'm not a writer..holy run-on sentence batman.)
Re:I am icon-impaired... (Score:2, Interesting)
Icons are a waste of time. Instead, choose a specific, short word.
This is coming from someone who:
- drew since I was four, and was often called an "artist" in school
- majored in Communication
- makes web sites for a living
But:
- a short string of text effectively is a picture --- several studies have shown that readers just look at the shapes of words. For example, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas.
- Google doesn't use icons. And we know that Google makes most of its design decisions not from some personal taste but usability tests. The only place it uses icons is in that "Even More" list of all its services. Even then, beside the icon is a word. And I wonder if the icons aren't there just to add some visual interest to an otherwise dry-looking page. They certainly do not tell you everything you need to know about an application. That's why there are names and notes beside each one.
Re:paws (Score:3, Interesting)
Puns don't belong as icons. For one, they fail i18n.
I forget what the application (or was it a game?) was... probably on the Amiga. The 'pause' button was a pair of animal footprints... paws.
I believe the peer-to-peer file sharing application BearShare also used a paw print for a "Pause" button.
I work on development of an application (I won't name) where there is a set of icons I long to replace which use a blue gear and a gray octagon with "1c" printed in it (where c is the cent sign), both outlined in black, to symbolize "Change Options". It's not even a copper penny to represent the verb change: it is a steel penny! And these symbols take up over 50% of the icon's area.
Re:Confusing icon practices (Score:3, Interesting)
Your post reminds me of the guy who criticized the 2nd generation iPod because he couldn't find the "on" button. Uh..you just touch any button and it turns on. All you have to do is try ANY button.
That's fine. How do you turn the damn thing off?
The iPods (in all their variants) are so intuitive that I can't even give directions to somebody on how to operate one because I don't know how to unless I'm holding it in my hand (if that makes any sense).
It does, but that's not what intuitive means. I had a schleppy part time data entry job where I churned out shit in the most atrociously designed piece of shit database application you've ever seen. I had it down to muscle memory, how many times I hit tab, when to press space and when to press enter, the whole deal. Couldn't explain to it someone to save my ass, but I had that bastard down. That's not "intuitive," that's just "doing something over and over."
Again, being a "very technically inclined person", you probably bring years of technology expectations to how the device should work (i.e. like many of the other poorly designed gadgets you've probably used over the years).
Leaving the sickening taste of elitism in that statement completely aside, no, actually I had pretty much zero experience with any sort of mobile device at the time the iPod began to get popular. I didn't get an mp3 player of my own until 2006, and I finally broke down and got a cell phone this year.
Sorry, but I think any device that can ship with an instruction booklet that only needs a few illustrations (and no text) is a pretty good design feat, especially for all the stuff it can do.
I used to do customer service for a company that sold shitty little $30 DVD players. They came with little four page booklets with like fifty total words and four pictures. It was still a piece of shit. Lots of companies are lazy about documentation of consumer electronic devices. Don't try to paint it as a virtue.