On Feb 28, 2008, at 3:31 PM, Loren Baxter wrote: > I definitely see where you're coming from with standardization, but > I've > never felt that it was a good standard. Sometimes the status quo > simply > isn't good enough; I think the power icon is a fine candidate for > that.
This thread has now entering the silly realm. The symbols for On, Off, Toggle On/Off and Standby are elegant, simple, clean, easy to draw and can be used anywhere and under any condition. The fact designers and others have used them incorrectly is an entirely separate problem. Creating symbols that are general enough, can work under any print or manufacturing process while also being clear and not easily confused with OTHER standard symbols that have been defined -- while also being reasonably culturally agnostic -- is extraordinarily difficult. The folks who created these particular symbols did an amazing job solving this problem. A long time ago, I made the decision at Adobe to propagate the "new" icon across all the products. It's the rectangle with the "page tear" in the corner. Does that symbol mean "new." Good luck trying to find anything that means "new." You pick a symbol based a few criteria, a large part of which is due to it simplicity to draw it, then spend literally years, often times decades, making it a standard. Question: How is the symbol for the letter "A" intuitive or meaningful? Answer: It's not. Someone a long time ago drew it, probably some despot liked it or otherwise forced it onto his people, those people won a lot of wars and the symbol stuck. After that, you were basically taught at a very early age that "A" was the symbol for the letter A. And it took you a long time to learn all those symbols in the alphabet while you were in grade school, but thankfully you were young and less inclined to argue about how intuitive the symbol was based solely on nothing more than your own personal opinion or experience. In other words, the symbol had already made its way into the culture and you learned it like you and everyone else learned all those other symbols: You were taught what it meant by someone else. The On, Off, Toggle On/Off, and Standby symbols are elegant, simple and very useful, and are a standard in the engineering and manufacturing industry. Trying to go against them -- especially now that they are legitimate standards -- is the largest possible waste of time imho. I think we simply need to learn what they are and use them properly. The faster designers do that, the faster they will become "intuitive" in society at large as people are taught what the symbols mean. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
