On Feb 28, 2008, at 6:32 PM, Murli Nagasundaram wrote: > Until I moved to the US from India in 1986, I don't recall having > encountered the 0/1 power symbol more than a couple of times.
Given that the symbols were defined in the early 1970s, and it's now 2008 where they've finally seen the kind of widespread adoption to be more universal... I'm not exactly sure what your point is bringing up 1986. That was two years after the first mainstream GUI was introduced by Apple. That's a lifetime ago in the digital industry. That's more than 20 years ago now. > Even today, > the symbol is quite rare except on computers and some other digital > products. The symbols are not rare. They are near ubiquitous. They are on nearly everything that has an electronic component or requires electricity these days. Nearly every modern appliance now uses these symbols. > This is not a rant against the 'Standard Power Symbol' -- it's > simply to > take note that naive assumptions about universality and a dismissive > attitude towards raising questions about the issue are very similar > to the > attitude of some system developers who view users as being 'losers' > and if > they are unable to appropriately use a system then its their own > problem. The IEC and IEEE develop standards with far more rigor and process than anyone in this young field of IxD ever does. Getting standards passed with the IEC is tough, and they put a lot of thought into the things they do. > Language and symbology does take time to permeate through society, > particularly a large, diverse, complex one. While most symbols are > at least > somewhat arbitrary, the 'right arrow/right-pointing triangle' used > for the > PLAY button is much less so -- pointing and arrows developed early > enough in > the evolution of the species that the symbol could be considered > 'universal'. The Pause and Stop symbols, however, are pretty darned > arbitrary -- the mapping to the real functions is cognitively more > taxing. Entirely made up. You are picking and choosing your reasoning without concrete, factual, researched evidence to back it up. > Sitting here in my parents' home in India, I can step out of the > house and > point at any random person outside and be fairly certain that they > don't > understand the 0/1 symbol. Give India another 20 years and I'm sure they will. The symbols were developed in the early 1970s and it hasn't been until late the 1990s that most people in the United States started understanding them better. It takes time. There are no shortcuts. > This situation is unlikely to change for a long while. See above. > I live with my aged parents in India now. Every day -- and indeed > several > times a day -- I encounter situations that they are unable to cope > with > because of an inability to deal with arbitrary symbols or > conventions, or > complex processes. Generalizing design principles from a Web 2.0 > user base > of twenty-something, college-educated, Americans leaves a whole lot of > people out in the cold. The power symbols were developed by experienced professionals in the well established field of engineering in the early 1970s. The symbols are not arbitrary, and had a lot of thought and process put into developing them, just like a lot of the other standards put into place. Your logic simply does not stand. Honestly... it's threads like this and random, arbitrary, unfounded logic or selective picking of whatever reason one feels like without knowing the history of the thing that gives designers a bad name in the eyes of engineers. Stop it. Please. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
