On Sat, 2006-07-10 at 17:19 +0200, Nacho de los Rios wrote: > The icon for the delete action seems to be a picture of a schredder, but > > a) It is not a very good picture, with too little contrast and detail to > convey what it is, and much less what it means. > > b) I'm sure that the image of a shredder is NOT AT ALL what comes to the > mind of 99.99% of the world's population when it comes to disposing of > things so > > c) the purpose of the icon is totally baffling.
Welcome to the wonderful learning experience of
developing a desktop operating system. Even MS
and Apple don't have the answers. Realistically,
we are possibly in a better position than both of
those companies regarding such issues due to the
immediacy of the response and our ability to adapt
at the speed of thought.
That said, however, there are no easy solutions.
Having given a lot of thought to this and a good
deal of research, I cannot see a way to provide a
solution that would work for everyone without a
fundamental shift of our "Operating System" paradigm.
Points:
* On the technical merits of the asteroid, I would agree.
* On the cross cultural impact of such icons, I would
also agree.
If we dissect the problem into components, I can see
only one of two possible paths in this regard:
1) We attempt at flailing further down the road to
find an icon that works across all cultures for
everyone. Sheer folly.
2) We develop completely distinct iconography based
on archetypes that the user would learn when applied
consistently across the platform. Once a user learns
the motif, they can expect it to do similar actions
across the operating system. Remember, prior to the
compact disc, no one would identify a circular element
with the notion of music.
Completely interesting discussion and _very_ appropriate
for an operating system that is aimed at the future
as Mr. Shuttlworth has clearly stated.
Sincerely,
TJS
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