Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!sce!sunray!timd
From: timd@sunray.UUCP (Tim Dudley)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Cross-linguistic issues in the design of Icons
Message-ID: <6906@sunray.UUCP>
Date: 22 Aug 89 18:17:18 GMT
References: <9268@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <1985@softway.oz> <1989Aug20.005726.27233@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: timd@cognos.UUCP (Tim Dudley)
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 32


 >In article <1985@softway.oz> gary@softway.oz (Friend of Elvenkind) writes:
 >>If you are interested in creating universal icons then you are going to have 
 >>to design them with aliens from another planet in mind as your readers.  I
 >>have a feeling that for every icon useful to your own culture there will exist
 >>an alternate culture which would not understand it.  Can anyone suggest a
 >>universal icon?
>
I can suggest a universally lousy one - maybe we only get it in bilingual
Canada.  However, the icon in question is on the highway signs and looks 
roughly like                   ___
                              |   |
                              | ? |
                              |___|
                                |
                                |
                                |
                           """"""""""""

I finally realized that the reason this doesn't work is that all the other
roadside icons (tents, dinner place settings, ferries, gas pumps) show
what you'll find when you get there.  The ? tells you what you have to take
there to get what you want.  What's really ironic about this is that this is
the icon for "information".

Now. There's me, and there's the guys who "designed" this icon.  Which one is 
the alternate culture?

-- 
Tim Dudley                           Cognos Incorporated 
(613) 738-1440                       3755 Riverside Drive, P.O.Box 9707 
uucp: uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!timd    Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  K1G 3Z4