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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Usability and open source
From:       "Tomas Furmonavicius" <f1926 () kaunas ! aiva ! lt>
Date:       2000-02-02 15:37:32
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On Thu, Feb 03, 2000 at 12:10:20AM +1000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> Ugg. Me ignert caveman with brane size of walnut, 2 dum to compile
> linucks cernal or hack obscurated perl code, but even dum caveman like
> me noes the difrence between using icons as an *aid to memorization* and
> trying to rely *entirely* on pictorial icons.

:-)
 
> In other words, *text menus plus icons* is better than text only menus,
> which is better (much better) than icons only.

Yes, when icons are big enough. But icons in menus are maybe 16x16
only. Maybe they are understandable at 640x400 resolution, but running
at higher resolutions makes them useless. It's possible to improve
memorizations when all icons have different colors, but choice of
really different colors is very small, and such solution makes no sense
for color blind people.

> The human brain has a highly developed visual sense. It is extremely
> good at recognising graphical images and relatively poor at recognising
> words. It takes between six and twelve years of extensive schooling for
> the brain to become well-trained at recognising words without having to
> put them together letter-by-letter. In comparison, babies can recognise
> faces almost as soon as they open their eyes.
> 100 million years of evolution makes us good at recognising pictures.
> *Use* that fact, don't fight it.

But we do need only 6 - 12 years (not 100 million) to learn to recognize 
abstract symbol combinations like words - let's use this fact too :-)

Tomas

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