Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore

Icon for a phone - rectangular screen

Icon for a TV - rectangular screen

Icon for a tablet - rectangular screen

Icon for a camera - rectangular screen (with a little dot in the corner)

Icon for a video recorder - rectangular screen (with a little dot in the corner)

Its true that most icons refer and represent a visual form of something from a decade or more ago. But what do you replace them with that will be any better when a lot of these things have no distinctive visual form anymore?

> Want to indicate Settings or Setup to a twenty something? Show them a tool they've never used in their lives.

> If you don't know who Johnny Carson is, how could you know that this is a old-style microphone?

> No one under 30 has seen a Polaroid in years but we keep using them for icons.

We don't live in a cultural vacuum where everything that existed prior to our birth ceases to exist or be represented. We watch old movies, we watch old TV, we read old books and we see old photographs.

Some things go missing and some things stick around. The icons that stop having a useful meaning will either disappear or be transformed and some icons will come to be a somewhat abstract representation of what they do, even if they're based on things that existed in the past.

I don't understand people's obsession with telling everyone they should modernize their icons - if you think so, then you should do it. See how your users react.

"folders": we can go back to "directories" if you'd like. It's still what I say most of the time.

"wrenches/screwdrivers/gears": This was the most baffling one. Who's never used a screwdriver? And he says it as if it's obvious.

"phone": 75% of the US still has a landline (as of a year ago anyway), so I find "you haven't used this in 20 years" to be a rather dumb statement too.

"tv antenna": Antennas have actually come back recently when broadcast stations switched to digital and HD feeds. This would have been a better criticism ten years ago, and makes him the one that sounds out of date.

When I saw the article title, I figured "floppy disk" = "save". And sure, that's somewhat valid. But as others have pointed out, it's idiomatic. It happens in language all the time: people still say that someone is given "free rein" even if nobody involved has ever ridden a horse.

Similarly, the very letters of our language evolved out of symbols that meant something to some humans long ago, just as words have an etymology.

People simply start to associate icon with action. Mail on my Mac is represented by a postage stamp. I never realized that until I just analyzed it. Good icons are subconscious like that.

Or maybe they've learned all these icons and while not getting what they did mean, they understand what they mean now, like letters of a new alphabet. Like how many Asian script characters are descendants of more obvious pictograms of actions. They still have meaning even if they've evolved a bit and even changed.

Similarly there are still plenty of microphones that look like that, they're professional microphones, not "old fashioned" ones.

Road signs for railway crossings still show steam trains. Men/Women signs for toilets show women in skirts that nobody wears, on images that hardly resemble people at all.

My car has a snowflake for the AC button, even though snow doesn't come out of the vents when you switch it on.

Interestingly, signs that ban music players in certain areas now look like Gen 1 iPods, even though a modern iPod (or any other player) doesn't have a clickwheel.

The point is that, iconography is meant to be clear and concise. As long as everyone agrees on what something stands for, then it doesn't matter what that is. Generally, that thing refers to a classic image of a thing, because the original shape will always be associated with the modern version.

Envelopes are still used for lots of things. I still get mail.

I use screwdrivers pretty often, and I have access to wrenches.

I recognize the old microphones from movies (and even if I didn't, they look similar to newer mics.)

I've also used a polaroid in the past 5 years.

I've also seen TV sets with "rabbit ears" in the past 5 years.

The others I'm at least familiar with. I'm 18.

See the difference?

Out computer verbs are based off of (admittedly, maybe outdated) similar verbs. Our electronic work mirrors our physical work solely because of the limitations of our language constructs. I have it on good authority that there is not a single language that has words that that specifically define what we do on a computer that would be better suited and more efficient than a physical-describing counterpart.

So, as mentioned earlier, the floppy metaphor: OK, I get it. But clipboards, bookmarks, Manila folders? How would you describe an object that lets you take information from one place to another in 32px? What physical object are you aware of that allows you to mark your place amidst a vast density of information? Don't even get me started on the folders.

It's coy to label them "old-people icons" -- it's clever, I dig it -- but if tomorrow we were to unveil a new set of nouns and verbs to describe computer objects, the reigning argument would be that they never made sense at all.

And have fun trying to explain to your grandfather/mother/nephew how to uses computer without having any real-world jargon to borrow from.

I can't remember the last time I saw a save icon in any of the software I use. Not because saving has gone away, but because it's so fundamental to document-based applications that it doesn't need a dedicated button to call it out, and having one just wastes space. Saving isn't special functionality requiring an icon - you either use File>Save, or Cmd/Ctrl-S, or even just close the document and follow the prompt to save.

Copy, paste, open, these things don't need to take up valuable interface space as if they're some novelty functionality that uses must carefully be introduced to. We don't need a new save icon, because we don't need a save icon at all.

A general tone of "isn't this interesting" rather than "isn't this stupid", might reduce the negative reactions.

It never occurred to me before that the use of physical objects for software functionality may be transitory. Clearly these icons do work today (and their use is not stupid), but it's probably a matter of time that a new approach may be needed.

> Want to indicate Settings or Setup to a twenty something? Show them a tool they've never used in their lives.

What have screwdrivers and wrenches been replaced with?

Isn't the whole idea of updating traditions a little silly. They're traditions. We don't follow them because they make sense. We follow them because the people before us followed them.

100 years from now we'll still need a symbol to conceptualize saving something. The other ones might go away but we'll probably still need to save our work. I expect the floppy to still symbolize this. The users at the time will not understand what a floppy is. But unless there is good reason to upend convention why bother.

Just look at all the linguistic idioms we retain from yesteryear.

I don't have any axe to grind with icons. But tradition is nothing to sneeze at. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

> I don't see any reason that we couldn't be storing our files in abstract squares rather than folders in the sky.

...because they're called folders, and we know how to use them? If I said, "Here, have a square," is your first instinct really to think oh! that must be for putting stuff in/on? Sure, you can abstract them to just a symbol but it's unnecessary. It's not like the system cares what you call it or how you choose to display it.

> The world's most advanced phones include an icon that looks like a phone handset that you haven't touched in 20 years, unless you've used a pay phone recently.

I have in fact, but that's not the point. Again, we know the shape. There aren't many things it could be besides a phone. You could show someone a glossy brick I guess, but what good would that do? The best alternative I can think of would be something like a speaker or microphone, but where's the argument that that would actually be better?

> At some time in the past the magnifying glass became the "search everywhere" icon, but for some reason binoculars are for searching within a document.

I'm just now realizing that he must be thinking of a specific piece of software. I gathered he was on Windows, now I see he worked at MS. Is this Office? This one I agree with, but it sounds like a quirky error made by some engineer or perhaps phony UX consultant. Same goes for the clipboard– hell if I know why MS would use that icon for paste, but in no other software that I can think of is that normal.

> Envelopes

Same thing as folders. So our terminology expanded to cover abstract digital entities, but that doesn't make it a hinderance to our intuition. Folders, packages, envelopes... maybe they're too nostalgic for the bold futurist, but generally it's about as practical as you can get.

> Wrenches and Gears Who hasn't used a screwdriver? Or never seen a wrench? Even the people who don't own one probably know what it is. I'm indifferent to the gears/tools thing. It still makes sense, but I'm open to new ideas– preferably a little more clever than a circuitboard.

> Microphones For speech recognition, would an ear be better? I think most people would get the microphone bit simply from watching cartoons, talkshows, album covers etc... but I admit this will likely be more foreign in the future, and is already disconnected from people in developing countries without that much media exposure (although they apparently have an iPhone/Pad/Pod).

> Photography It's kitsch. It still makes sense because the alternative to a square with a border is a square without a border. But for all of us who still use medium/large format cameras from time to time or for work, we can simply pretend. Lenses are a-OK.

> Televisions Actually, for the large number of people who gave up cable for hulu and netflix but still want to catch the news– yes! I do have rabbit ears! Maybe it's a little too retro for most video icons, but again– it till makes sense, it just may be better suited to apps that show live broadcasts.

> Carbon Copies and Blueprints Eh, so the term's (carbon copy) a bit outdated. But then again, when was the last time I "pasted" a document together? Yeah, Drawing I. As for blueprints... it makes sense for XCode right? And CAD. We may not use blueprints so often anymore, but it's less ambiguous than "construction documents," which might as well be "layouts". Which might as well be squares with a shape on them. Etc...

Basically, this would be a far more interesting post if the author would go further into making actual suggestions. Some of it makes sense because it's intuitive, some of it makes sense because we're used to it. If you want to correct the latter, you've got to show something what's better.

Edit: ouch, that's an ugly post. Not sure if I can format it in any way.

Also, I'm looking forward to seeing what people suggest in the discussion here. It's an interesting topic for sure (and I'm sure there will be plenty of people to disagree with me).

The entire internet was AOL! It took 30 minutes from the time you turned on the computer to the time you loaded your first website. That is when you got all your thinking done!

As pointed out by Mike Kazarnowicz in the comments of Scott's post.

Coincidence or cherry-picking?

And when did we all get rid of wrenches? I didn't get that memo.

Conventions hang on for generations because speaking a common language is more important than being up to date.

To me, icons indicating actions (save, print, etc) work well when they depict (wholly or partly) a physical object that is obviously used to enact that action. I assume that this is because our visual cortex is tuned to recognise physical objects that do actions, not visual representations of actions themselves. We see a depiction of a hammer and know that its for driving nails, but its hard to depict driving nails without depicting a hammer. You could presumably do it (i'm not a graphic designer) but you're making people work harder to understand your depiction.

The problem is that sometimes changes in the world result in the recognisable physical object no-longer being recognisable and/or physical.

This can happen we make an action abstract ("save to floppy" becomes "save to cloud storage"), virtualise an action ("pick up phone and talk" becomes "make skype call using laptop"), or merge a once-external object into a multi-function object ("save to floppy" becomes "save to internal disk"). (What others have I missed?)

I don't know what to do about this. You could use a logo or graphical device/convention to indicate actions (e.g. skype logo indicates make a voice call) but you're also increasing the cognitive load on the user of the interface and increasing visual clutter.

Also, if you want to talk about outdated terminology, theres "disk" and "drive". These are being incorrectly applied to flash/solid state storage. They do apply to hard disk drives, and optical media.

Printed books aren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future (and I'm pretty sure all young people know what they are, even if they're not really into reading); the (Exchange-connected VoIP) phone on my desk at the office still has a handset shaped exactly like the icon; and what kind of magical sci-fi world does the author live in where no mechanical device requires gears any more, or where wrenches aren't necessary for basic home repairs?

We've been adapting old idioms to new uses since long before everything turned into a computer.

a) Something to do with journey planning/directions, or b) Some new in-car technology

When I saw it was neither of those, I presumed the cloud storage service had been named in the same way razors are named, i.e. "puts you in the driving seat" sort of thing.

It was only several hours later did it occur to me that, OMG, they mean like a FLOPPY DISK DRIVE? Yikes.

"Drive" is not really a word I've heard used in relation to storage for years. Mainly because we only think about the distinction between disk and drive when the two can be parted, like a floppy disk drive. Put the disk in the drive. Most removable media is USB-based these days, so the term isn't used.

I guess in 1990s-era Windows NT networks you'd be told to save your work to "the M: drive" or such, but yeah, 1990s.

To me it's a moronic product name. "I'll save that to my Google Drive!" Sure thing, you do that Grandpa.

One could argue that it's actually faster to parse words than icons sometimes (don't know what traffic sign planners would think about that)

Take a look at these ones that show up when you select text in Android ICS: http://asset3.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/10/18/ICS_co...

What on earth do they mean? I've been using ICS since January and I still don't know what they do except for the cut one. Because there's no way for them to show tooltips on hovering the only way to learn is to press it and try and work out what it just did.

A tin (can) is still a tin despite the fact it has nothing to do with the element today, a light bulb has no bulb any more. The floppy=save isn't going anywhere.

That being said, Polaroid-inspired icons are probably not ideal for every use.

And yes my TV has rabbit ears, only they are the wifi antennas on my router :)

His best example is "world wide", which he put forward should really be "world around" since we all now know that the earth is a globe and not flat.

Now I'm trying to figure out if I'm stupid or not.

Reminds me of an anecdote I read about an elementary school that had a rotary phone for the kids to use well after digital phones were the norm. The kids had to be taught how to use it. One child ultimately concluded it was not too different from a digital phone though it was real slow.

Reminds me of my standard flippant remark to my sons when they were growing up: "When I was a child and had a pet dinosaur and rotary phone." To my young sons, both dinosaurs and rotary phones were "prehistoric" -- I.e. existed before their time. For me, only dinosaurs were actually prehistoric.

The simple reason the save icon still looks like a floppy disk is because everyone expects it to look like that.

http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/3117/save-icon-is-the-...

seriously - there's some good points made here, including:

"The floppy disk icon is an idiom, not a metaphor. It doesn't matter that we're no longer writing files on 1.44MB 3.5" disks. It doesn't matter that many users don't even know what a floppy disk is. What matters is that users associate the icon with saving." -- Patrick McElhaney

And a little OT remark about the so called "dead tree format" - it helps hide the fact that e-books might actually be more harmful to the planet than "dead tree" ones (think carbon imprint).

The really interesting point - that there are more and more icons that truly are becoming "icons" in a more metaphorical sense of the word - was already made quite poignantly by the tweet.

Being anachronistic isn't inherently a flaw. However, if our attachment to anachronism is preventing us from using more intuitive icons, then our bias toward anachronism is something we should examine critically.

So, the real question is: are there more intuitive visual representations available for common computer actions? What does an e-mail address book look like?

Remember that A didn’t start as an A, it started as a sign for ox. That’s right, our writing system had skeuomorphic origins.

Someone growing up today might not know what a handset it, but I’m pretty sure they recognize the handset icon. This is true for a lot of stuff in our culture (think of non-textual road signs).

I'll bet many people here have never heard a broken record, but still have heard the phrase "sounds like a broken record."

The old icons are fine.

Someone who hasn't used a computer before isn't going to know that a floppy disk icon means save, even if they have seen a one before and know what it is used for. For all they know it's means open a file.

And for non-English speakers, is it really harder to learn what 'print' means than consulting a cheat sheet for what the icons mean?

Programmers know why, but users don't. Same goes for icons: designers know what they're doing & why...

When icons fail to be understood, they can fail hard. I spent a lot of time frustrated with the new gmail design until I changed the icons to text.

The headline refers to "people icons" that are old. I went to see how many people icons there could even be. Turns out that what he really means is old-people icons.

After reviewing the author, filed under: Comedy!