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From: gary@softway.oz (Gary Corby)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Cross-linguistic issues in the design of Icons
Keywords: interfaces, icons, cross-linguistic issues, Spanish
Message-ID: <2032@softway.oz>
Date: 30 Aug 89 01:11:42 GMT
References: <9268@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <1985@softway.oz> <6531@stiatl.UUCP> <30800@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Softway Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia
Lines: 35

thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) writes:

>I realize that we think of 'icon' as pictorial but it doesn't seem that we have
>to. It might be useful to expand the idea to sound, smell, taste or touch. I
>mean after all icon originally meant a sacred image until it was secularized. 
>But why not an iconic sound. I'll bet the iconic sound of a wolf in the woods at midnight with you in the quallofil has a similar impact on an awful lot of 
>people regardless of their language ... or the sound of  a rattle snake in the 
>dark.    ...[deleted]...
>I think that in the west ( where I live) we over emphasis our 
>visual information. For universal icons I vote for wolf and rattle smake sounds and maybe brown bear smell in early spring on Kodiak Island. These I consider
>natural.

>--Thom

They're certainly natural sounds but they aren't universal even among humans.
If I were walking through the bush and heard a rattle I would have to assume
there was a wild baby on the loose.  There aren't many rattle snakes around
Sydney.  

The idea of something other than a visual icon is good, but I'm not sure I'd
go for an audio icon.  What if some of your audience is deaf?  For that
matter, what if some of them are blind?

There is however one sense which is almost impossible to lose without at
the same time becoming a corpse -- touch.  In fact, it is probably the one
sense you can hope to have remain reasonably constant across species.

Therefore I propose that the closest possible thing to a universal icon
is barbed wire.  It means, "Stay Away".

Gary
-- 
Gary Corby  (Friend of Elvenkind)			Softway Pty Ltd
						ACSnet: gary@softway.oz
					UUCP: ...!uunet!softway.oz!gary