On 18 Jun 2006, at 16:28, Rob Cozens wrote:
what better method is available to present the UI in a manner that those who don't speak the language of the programer may understand?
But this can all too easily result in presenting the UI in a manner that no-one <except> the programmer understands, and even the programmer may have trouble if she's hasn't looked at it for a while. OK, a picture of a train with an arrow will suggest to anyone who knows what a train is that the station is that-away, but many of the routine actions we perform with computers are not so easily represented by a simple 16X16 picture - all anglophones tend to agree on what 'separate' means, but should the zipper icon mentioned in my previous post be open or closed?
And using icons as label fields and column headings has a MAJOR advantage over text: they remain the same size regardless of the the language. So if one is translating an application from French to German, for example, one need not be concerned whether the German label text takes up more field space than the same text in French.
The major advantage is only to the programmer - not a good substitute for proper internationalization. And tool-tips, though they have their uses, really don't cut it - if the user can't fathom what what the un-captioned little pictures mean (either because of cultural differences, or because of poor choices by the programmer), then she has to hover her mouse over each icon until she finds the one she wants. Captions, in the users own language, are incomparably better.
It seems to me that pictures are great where one can assume a shared frame of reference (nearly everyone knows about trains, and trains tend to look quite alike everywhere), but when striving for clarity in a UI, I think it's essential to remember that humans tend to use language, far more than anything else, for the purpose of communicating information effectively.
Why abandon language, when it's so much more clear and efficient than just about anything else?
Best, Mark _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
