Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2463 sci.edu:636 comp.cog-eng:1312 Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!santra!kiravuo From: kiravuo@kampi.hut.fi (Timo Kiravuo) Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: What to know & universal icons Message-ID: Date: 31 Aug 89 08:54:45 GMT References: <768@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <3490@rtech.rtech.com> <1316@blackbird.afit.af.mil> <56868@aerospace.AERO.ORG> Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center Lines: 36 In-reply-to: lubofsky@aerospace.aero.org's message of 29 Aug 89 19:16:33 GMT In article <56868@aerospace.AERO.ORG> lubofsky@aerospace.aero.org (Nick Lubofsky) writes: >Wouldn't all people recognize this? > O > --+-- > | > / \ Yes, a biped with one leg in cast up to his waist? Or maybe a pregnant woman with hanging breasts? :-) You are using the special characters that are translated to Scandinavian ones on my terminal. Vertical bar is a o with dots and backslash is a capital O with dots on. (See soc.culture.nordic for details.) So you can not even trust ASCII. In my opinion this debate has showed us that it is bloody difficult to design universal icons. At the best you can achieve something that _most_ people understand, but not all. Also understanding depends much on the observers cultural background. So now you have a good excuse for travelling; "Look boss, if we want to capture the Tasmanian market I just have to go there and see which way they have the arrows on highways." And an anecdote. A washing powder company was advertising in some Arabian country. They had billboards showing a dirty cloth on the left, cloth in water with washing powder in the middle and a shining white cloth in the right-hand picture. Unfortunately Arabian is read from right to left... -- Timo Kiravuo Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center work: 90-451 4328, home: 90-676 076 kiravuo@hut.fi sorvi::kiravuo kiravuo%hut.fi@uunet.uu.net