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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the my-floppy-drive-still-works dept.

Our office recently updated to a new version of the Office Suite, and it still has an icon in the upper-left corner to perform the 'Save' function. Floppy drives have not been in use for years, and many children would not recognize a 3.5 inch floppy disk on sight. Programs have used this icon for years, because we have yet to find a suitable replacement. The CD/DVD can no longer represent saving, because they have come and gone. Even moving to the more abstract Piggy Bank icon would not work, because they are seldom used in the modern age. A USB Key icon may represent saving in some form, but the may not be around much longer if another medium gains favor. Does this mean that the venerable 3.5 inch Floppy will represent saving information to future generations, or should it be replaced by a different symbol?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:16AM

    by Dr Spin (5239) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:16AM (#443669)

    What is this obsession with making computers "useable" by pre-school children?

    Lets just get rid of the whole Icon/emoticon stupidness.

    There is nothing wrong with using WORDS in menus. The computer user can be guaranteed to be able to read to a basic level, and the computer can be set to a language he/she understands, otherwise they would not have got to the point where the need to save anything.

    If you really need to learn a whole new set of symbols to communicate, why not use Kanji? at least it has been tried and tested - and half the world's population can already understand it.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kazzie on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:33AM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:33AM (#443675)

    Lets just get rid of the whole Icon/emoticon stupidness.

    There is nothing wrong with using WORDS in menus.

    Sure there is: it increases the translation costs.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Pino P on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:55PM

      by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:55PM (#443926) Journal

      You still have to translate each icon's tooltip.

  • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:38AM

    by theluggage (1797) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:38AM (#443676)

    What is this obsession with making computers "useable" by pre-school children?

    Its a euphemism for making adults able to understand what their pre-school children are doing with the computer.

    There is nothing wrong with using WORDS in menus.

    Which is generally what happens: words on menus, with icons as "short cuts" for use on toolbars etc. where screen space is at a premium.

    If you really need to learn a whole new set of symbols to communicate, why not use Kanji? at least it has been tried and tested - and half the world's population can already understand it.

    ...while the other half of us, who weren't exposed to Kanji from an early age, struggle to tell many of the characters apart, let alone attach meaning to them.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:51PM (#443763)

    I'd also like to know which jackasses thought that an "incomplete box with an arrow pointing into it" is supposed to intuitively indicate "log out" and that "three parallel horizontal lines" is supposed to represent the Menu.

    • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:11PM

      by Aiwendil (531) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:11PM (#443983) Journal

      I've never seen arrow pointing into the box for log out (that I can recall), but I'be often seen it point out from it.

      However - the two symbols yoy mentioned makes a lot of sense...
      * arrow and box - indicating travelling through a door that's ajar (like on emergency exit signs). So it is a generic "exit"/"leave" symbol.

      * three lines - generic for "list", and a menu is a list of items.

      The weird thing is that we don't see both of those more for other lists (the odd arrows we use for expand/collapse are strange - having three lines for expand and a single line for collapse would make more sense), or as other senses of heading elsewhere (would make more sense than the circle-with-line that we use now for suspend/logout - the circle-with-line is more apt for a hard shutdown)

  • (Score: 1) by AssCork on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:05PM

    by AssCork (6255) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:05PM (#443977) Journal

    The computer user can be guaranteed to be able to read to a basic level

    Oh man, you do know there's an "Internet", right?
    The world beyond your web-browser extends beyond the bastion of grammatical correctness and eloquent prose that is Soylent.

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