Most of the world switched to phonetic scripts a long time ago. That's be because they're strictly superior to pictograms. Icons are optional. Text is required. Sorry if you have to translate it.
You don't need a label to say "Close" next to the "X" on your window. Or "Play" next to a right-facing triangle in your media player. Or the word "Search" next to a text box with a magnifying glass in it. We have certain "pictograms" that are just as widely understood as letters themselves.
There is a spectrum from widely-understood symbols that don't need labels, to totally ambiguous/confusing/custom symbols that are helped greatly by labels.
That said, I agree with the article that right now, a lot of apps could benefit from more labels rather than less.
1. Search (across the application)
2. Find on page
3. Adjust zoom
We are literally living in the era of emoji and there is one for every single one up there. Teens can have all conversations without using words.
It happens because the more we use symbols, the more we attach and spread meaning.
Send "lesser than three" to someone 30 years ago, you'll get a blank reaction.
Send "<3" today, and it's a different game.
As someone who uses emojis to a degree that is embarrasing, I agree tgat often are amazing to convey things tgat words have harder time, but I still have to accept that there is ambiguity in their meanings, yes, a bunch of conventions have rooted enough that most people would undertand the same, but get out of those or simply present them in a different environment and things change. Labels are way less ambiguous.
Instead, I find myself trying to puzzle out what the hell some cryptic pictogram means, very frustrating. I also have really come to despise this trend of not visually signifying that an icon is a pressable button.
Fun fact, the original icon for this was more like:
/-----\
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Similarly in some DOS TUIs: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/23921
I definitely agree. I just think that it's just been so common in GUIs for long enough to be one of the few that's probably safe to just assume will be understood. Sort of like the two vertical bars for 'pause' on a media player.
On modern Android menus are (more) often I under a button with 3 dots.
Occasionally horizontal, usually vertical.
A lot of windowing systems will show a tool tip saying “Close” if you hover over that X.
Similarly, any menu items for Close (eg right clicking on the task bar) will have both text and an icon.
> Or "Play" next to a right-facing triangle in your media player.
It’s actually pretty common on hardware devices to have text accompanying those icons.
And particularly on older devices when those icons were less ingrained into everyone’s memory.
For example:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images2500x2500/coby_cvr...
> Or the word "Search" next to a text box with a magnifying glass in it
And you’d be amazed at the number of nontechnical people who struggle with that.
This is why websites designed for people of varying technical abilities, for example holiday booking sites, have text inside the search box describing what it’s used for.
For example in this picture of EBay, there is text that says “Search for anything”
https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/DwZPyw8OFhQje9EAgEVOtBpUYVM=/1...
> There is a spectrum from widely-understood symbols that don't need labels
Widely understood by who? People writing the software? Or people actually using the software? ;)
Software engineers sometimes forget that most people don’t use computers nor websites for fun and thus don’t want to learn what a bunch of pictograms mean.
Frankly, I don’t want to memorise icons either and I do use computers for fun. So there has better be some text labels available for when I’m old, eyesight going, and less comfortable with technology than I currently am.
That's a good example. I love text buttons because they are _larger_.
> Or the word "Search" next to a text box with a magnifying glass in it.
And here I _definitely_ disagree. I hate the search interfaces that are hidden behind a small icon somewhere.
Pixelmator Pro shows you the names of the tool buttons, once, when you first launch the app. They disappear the moment you click a button. Nice. a whole 10 seconds to memorize all two dozen of them.
And they chose not to use the system tooltip on hover, so I have to wait for some humungous pictorial tooltip to load in when all I want to know is the goddamn hotkey.
The initial claim was that text is strictly superior to icons, which means that icons have not a single thing they’re better at then text. That’s just plainly false.
I use dozens of apps regularly enough to not be a beginner but not so much that I know their keyboard shortcuts. Icons have a role.
A handful of Chinese characters are pictograms. As far as I recall, it is by far the smallest class of characters, and all of them, including the ones that started as pictograms, are treated by modern readers as phonetic indicators.
Compare e.g. 象 to https://img.zdic.net/zy/jinwen/33_E87E.svg .
They are the same character. Does that help you if you're looking at 象?
But we all know many modern designers don't know the value of giving the user choice (or aren't given the agency to do so by their employers).