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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Icon improvements.
From:       Sergej Malinovski <sergej () nospam ! dk>
Date:       2001-03-08 21:25:44
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On Thursday  8. March 2001 15:06, Sean Pecor wrote:
> I'm motivated by my perspective. I don't think the cut, copy and paste
> icons as a whole are intuitive.

Puuuh-leeez! :) The word "intuitive" gets on my nerves these days. Use it 
with caution. Not much in this big, big World is intuitive. Perhaps to pee in 
the bushes is... but there is a reason why people go to kindergarden, school 
etc. -- people learn (basic) things, they don't just do them by intuition. At 
least not if we are talking about normal people as opposite of geniuses.

The keyword here is not "intuition" but "association"! Ones you've learned(!) 
what the icon/function does, the icons makes you remember what the function 
does by making you easily associate the icon with the function(name). The 
purpose of icons (or a road sign) is not to teach you the meaning of life, 
but to remember what you where taught by your own experience, someone else 
(or driving school, or whatever it's called). That's my view on these things.

[snip MS bashing]

> The Klipper
> goes one step further and immediately copies your selection in the
> clipboard - a feature I love and use continually.

I think it the feature of X, and has nothing to do with Klipper. Besides, I 
hate this feature. Like if I reply to your email, I copy "kde-look@kde.org" 
from your headers, I push reply and select your email address to delete it 
with one button, but I can no longer paste what I intended to paste! Instead 
I have to go to Klipper and select my old selection which is pain in the 
neck. I find this implicit copy functionality disturbing.

> Does anyone on this list use the cut, copy and paste icons regularly? If
> not, is it because there are better ways or is it because the icons were
> never very clear for you? I think there is room for improvement.

I never use those buttons, but my parents using MS Office do, because they 
don't know the shortcut keys and it's faster than using menus. If there is 
room for improvement, I don't see it.

> But, for the novice
> computer user, the copy and cut icons don't communicate any association to
> the clipboard whatsoever.

I cannot talk for every novice user, only for my parents who are. I don't 
think they understand the *concept* of a clipboard, be it the simple Windows 
version and more advanced Klipper. But, there is NO doubt about what cut, 
copy and paste functions do ones the user have tried playing with them for 10 
minutes. Now, the association. Icons (or anything else for that matter) don't 
communicate association. They association just is. There is no communication. 
Association makes secondary reflexes, if I may call them that way. It is of 
course a communication, but not in the same sense as you want it to be. It's 
communication without thinking. You don't stare and examine the icon/button 
-- you just press it ones you know what it does and where it is. An elephant 
icon could denote the cut function, and you won't care, as long as other 
functions don't use elephants as well. Consistency is another keyword here. 
But scissors might be just a little more sane to use. I mean, I use scissors 
to cut things, and actually I have a pair on my table in front of me right 
now. Same goes for the copy icon. The paste button makes little sense to me, 
but I don't care, because that's was never that point! That's my point.

> Just my thoughts.

Of course. So are ours.

-- 
Sergej Malinovski [http://dreamer.nitro.dk]

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