Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

the issue with icons 2 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.
  • Yes, it's a tough problem. I used to work with a bunch of talented graphic designers and they all hated having to do icons. It's hard enough to come up with a number of icons that are each meaningful in their own right. On top of that though, giving them all a common theme so that they look like they belong together is extremely difficult.

    The OpenOffice toolbars are an uninspiring collection and the buttons in the Firefox default theme are another hodgepodge of apparently unrelated images.

  • It leads to users hovering over unhelpful icons, reading the tooltip, and then moving on to try the next icon until the right one is found.

    This is also known as “mystery meat navigation.”

    I suggest short textual monikers, even if they are somewhat cryptic without a description, and providing such a description using a tooltip. The benefit is that reading a well-chosen moniker helps you recall its description.

    Icons cannot offer this linguistic association. With them, it is necessary to m

Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.