From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Evolving rio / GUI development Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:40:32 -0800 From: Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: 15e6fbde-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 >> Interesting. And why do you need a button/tag with that on?. What exact >> program are you thinking on?. Just curious... > > I only thought of it later: what about "volume" or "intensity"? > > I was merely countering the suggestion that icons are better than > words, where in my opinion words are far more powerful symbols than > images, even though the latter are more descriptives. > > Different levels of abstraction, really. The more remote (abstract) > the symbol, the firmer the supporting social convention has to be to > support it. I take that (I'm no educated philosopher) to imply that > fewer ambiguities are possible. Mathematics makes a nice extreme > instance. I was thinking along the same lines, then I remembered something from Bill Bryson's latest book; he was talking about the chaotic notations and abbreviations that were used for elements before a Swedish scientist came up with a reasonable approach that became the standard. If it's standard, then everyone gets it. The most exact icon I've ever seen is the "bullet in the forehead" button in an early version of Inferno's debugger. I thought the blood dripping was a nice touch, removing any doubt.