Simon’s Blog

Tim Bray made a good point today about the usability of icons, or rather the lack of usability. If you want to think about usability of interfaces some more, I really recommend the book I cited in a previous blog entry.

Why does it matter that graphical icons are meaningless? It’s because it makes an interface hard to learn i.e. you have to learn what the icon means. Much better to have an explanatory word on a button, rather than a cryptic graphic (assuming you have the screen real estate to spare).