Jared, could you post your results of your study - I've been getting a similar question about icons.
There is some literature regarding icons versus text only versus text+icons in the HFES literature. This was a big topic in the early days of toolbars. Deb Mayhew has some research results in her book Principles of Software User Interface Design. As I recall, the combination of text + icon lead to the best performance (redundant cues is one explanation for this I believe) though as Scott pointed out there is a trade-off of space and text size and translation and frequency of use..... I think that you'll find some information on this topic in some of the traditional HF textbooks. I'll see if I can dig up the performance literature and post a summary. Chauncey On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Jared Spool <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:45 PM, Patrick Neeman wrote: > >> It really depends on expert vs. novice users. Novice users aren't >> going to pick up on icons right away. Expert users who use the >> application 8 hours a day will. > > Based on what data? I have studies that say that, in most apps, most experts > can't tell you what the icons they look at, day-in and day-out, do or > represent. > > Jared > > Jared M. Spool > User Interface Engineering > 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 > e: [email protected] p: +1 978 327 5561 > http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: jmspool > UIE Web App Summit, 4/19-4/22: http://webappsummit.com > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
