This is something that I remember from my days in grad school taking a look at UI design – what goes into designing an icon. It struck me that even in this new age of increased definition, we are still trying to simplify the interface. This is a challenge that will continue and it seems to be at the root of many of the issues surrounding IT. Once people understand the basic vocabulary of the computer, they are able to understand what the little house looking icon might mean, and what the camera icon might mean. But for those who are coming from a different background that doesn’t share the same primary concepts that get distilled into icons, this simplification just goes to make computing more difficult. Even for the people who live and breathe in a computerized environment, a slightly different icon, even if it is the same theme can be problematic. I found this with my new phone. The picture icon isn’t a camera, it’s aperture blades. I don’t know about you, but even me being a computer and photo geek, it took me a couple times to “get” the new icon. I knew what it did, but I still had to do a mental double take, understanding the icon only by knowing what the other icons were and through elimination understanding the “take picture” button.
This simplification is certainly a double edged sword and it will be interesting to see how it changes now that we’ve got a new generation coming of age that has grown up with the icons of two generations past, it will be interesting to see what we will see in GUIs of the future. Especially when you consider that the majority of these designers will no longer have a North Atlantic background.
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