Chauncey asked: > Jared, could you post your results of your study > - I've been getting a > similar question about icons.
Anecdotally: I've found that it's possible to take any moderately well-used program, e.g. Powerpoint, and use it to demonstrate the problems of icon recognition. - capture all the icons from the program's ordinary screen, - take them out of context - ask people what the icons are for - now try it again with the icons in their usual places - now try it a third time with the icons in their usual places and their usual captions (if any) I used to do this in Open University tutorials to help get students thinking about recognition over recall. Even people who use the program regularly will have startling gaps in their knowledge. Both the context and the labels are important. (Another trick I've tried is to ask people what the icons on their keyboard mean - on PC keyboards in the UK, there's usually one with a sort of wavy flag and another with a vertical oblong with an arrow on it. All you IX people probably use them all the time, but many others are surprised to find that those keys are present on the keyboard and have to try them to find out what they might be for. Not that text is necessarily better: UK keyboards have an "Alt Gr" key that is incomprehensible to nearly everyone). Best Caroline Jarrett www.formsthatwork.com "Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability" Foreword by Steve Krug ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
