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List:       kde-artists
Subject:    Re: K-ARTIST:"Symbolizing Accessibility" Article Link
From:       antialias <vukman () b2mail ! dk>
Date:       2002-01-19 2:04:14
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Hi Sebastian,

thanks for the nice article. It is incredible but you must be reading my 
mind. I'll try to explain:

For a last few days I have been trying to figure out what symbol to use 
to replace default accessibility icon in kde.
And than puff - you post this nice article. Yes I totally agree with this:

'The ancient symbol for wheelchair access is a stick figure with a 
tadpole's head plopped onto three-quarters of a wheel, with arms that 
double as the Tadpoleman's and the wheelchair's. The figure is nominally 
white and the ground is blue. It's pretty awful even as a symbol of 
specific wheelchair access due to its ugliness and its strange Borg-like 
union of Tadpoleman and machine; indeed, the whole shebang looks like 
some kind of alien anal probe.'

Beside the fact that the icon is ancient (nothing to do with computers) 
and ugly, I think that the symbol is also immoral (not adhering to 
ethical or moral principles).
1. We don't need to remind people who are incapacitated by a chronic 
illness or injury that they are not healthy
2. People who have bad eyes are invalidated more if we 'put' them in a 
wheel chair
3. Icons & symbols which stress disability instead of improved 
capability are generally bad-design

But I don't agree with the author of the article that Apple's icon for 
general accessability should be used as a common symbol for that purpose 
(although it is 'well designed') and here is why:

1. The author wrote about two defects of the icon: it is representing a 
male (serious defect) who is stretching his legs and arms (minor defect 
maybe)
2. It is 'in' in modern 'design' to impersonalize everything, so when we 
have an icon which shows a human being - that icon shows a 'person' 
without eyes, ears - definitely without face (the best example is MS 
Windows XP's icons - unfortunatelly KDE accepted one of these icons and 
now we have it in Kcontrol and it represents (im)personalisation.
3. Someone is maybe going to kill me for this but I think that Gnome's 
artists gives LIFE to their desktop environment (a little monkey hanging 
on the computer screen)
4. Emotions are expelled from the worlds of symbols and icons (there are 
some excellent examples that bright people can do it in right way: 
Smiley, WWF's panda etc.

I suggest that we use Smiley as symbol for general accessability because 
a smile opens every door :)

BTW, I suggested a long time ago that we replace default 'cookie' icon. 
Now we have a birthday cake with a candle, but maybe we can use a bomb 
instead of candle.


regards,

antialias


Sebastien Biot wrote:

>Seeing everaldo's 'crystal' accessibility icon reminded me of this article I 
>read this week which I think you guys might find it interesting. The summary 
>reads:
><<After half a decade of attempts and a misapplication of the "classic" 
>wheelchair icon, we finally have something that might work as a generic 
>indicator of accessibility - from Apple, of all places.>>
>
>The article is at http://joeclark.org/symbolizing.html
>
>Seb
>


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