Xref: utzoo comp.cog-eng:1246 sci.lang:5029 Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!purdue!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!usenet From: bks@alfa.berkeley.edu (Brad Sherman) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,sci.lang Subject: Re: Cross-linguistic issues in the design of Icons Keywords: interfaces, icons, cross-linguistic issues Message-ID: <1989Aug14.183557.26947@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: 14 Aug 89 18:35:57 GMT References: <9268@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <4560@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> Reply-To: bks@alfa.berkeley.edu (Brad Sherman) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 31 In article <4560@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> matt@uhccux.UUCP (Matthew McGranaghan) writes: >In article <9268@cs.Buffalo.EDU> "CROSS-LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF ICONS", >dmark@cs.Buffalo.EDU (David Mark) points out an interesting feature of icons. > ... >Reactions? After CHI '88 I had to keep reminding myself that the 'I' stands for Interaction, not Interface. After CHI '89 it seemed to have been further refined to Icon. I have been immersed in the same culture as the Mac interface designers, but it was not immediately apparent to me that a house means go back to the beginning, and I use a magnifying glass to enlarge or expand, not search. At the Wang "freestyle" exhibit, I was having a lot of fun with this new toy, but was having some problems using the "buttons" at the top of the screen. I thought that they were an abstraction of a cassette player or VCR panel. One of the developers (about 25 years old, I'm 38) informed me that they were patterned after the controls of a CD player which allows one to switch from track to track. "Oh," I said. "Like an 8-track cartridge player!" "A what?" he replied. An anesthesiologist at the same convention told me of a piece of electronic hardware which had on the back panel, above a socket for a cable, a picture of a heart with the international slashed-circle over it. After querying the manufacturer he found out that this means electrically isolated --no shock to the heart. Are band-saws user-friendly? Let's stop designing for tyros. ---------------- Brad Sherman