Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekcrl!tekgvs!tekirl!sandyg From: sandyg@tekirl.LABS.TEK.COM (Sandy Grossmann) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Universal icons Message-ID: <5861@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> Date: 31 Aug 89 20:40:27 GMT References: <343@aratar.UUCP> <4878@eos.UUCP> Sender: nobody@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM Reply-To: sandyg@tekirl.LABS.TEK.COM (Sandy Grossmann) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 20 The Poison Control Center has created a round, yellow-green sticker meant to convey a warning to youngsters. The sticker shows a graphic of a grimacing face with a tongue stuck out. (This is a bit hard to convey over the net!) It is not a friendly looking face, let's put it that way. I guess the Center felt that yellow-green was a distasteful color and that children would consequently associate the sticker with something to avoid. Unfortunately, the brightness of the color and the cartoon appearance of the face are apparently rather attractive to toddlers. However, it brings up an issue that is relevant to icon design. Sometimes we forget that humans tend to recognize human facial expressions better than they recognize symbols. Can you think of applications for icons that use human expression (or posture) to convey meaning? Perhaps for cautions? Or ???? Sandy Grossmann sandyg@tekirl.labs.tek.com