On Fri, Feb 09, 2007, Eli Marmor wrote about "Re: Why are GNOME applications (and applets) take so much [EMAIL PROTECTED] memory ?": >... <<<some excellent points snipped>> > The programs were also friendlier, because all the options in the > (limited) UI/menus/etc were textual, in simple English, and not > graphical icons that you must be a genious to guess what the programmer > meant. If icons were really friendlier than text, it could be useful in > other fields of life; For example, instead of speaking to each other, > we could use pantomime. Fortunately, nobody is so cruel to force the > people to communicate in pictures (except for UI "experts" who force > the programmers to over-use graphics).
I always like to compare icons in "toolbars" and such to Chinese, while text interface (text menus, command line, etc.) are like alphabetic languages (like Hebrew and English). Like Chinese idiograms, if you have a 100 different actions in a toolbar you need to remember the 100 different pictures for them; These pictures are rarely self-explanatory, and when you need a specific one it takes you a long time to find the correct one. I think there's a clear concensus (even among Chinese) that alphabets are more efficient than idiograms. They are faster to learn, faster to use, and easier to extend with new words (actions). In this case, who was the UI designer "genius" that decided sometime in the early 90s that in the UI (tool bars, desktop background, applet bar, and more places), the reverse is true, and idiograms should be adopted over alphabets?? As you can guess by the quotes I put around the word "genius" above, I think this was an utter mistake. The most idiotic UI blunder I see daily is the MS-Windows "desktop" with its dozens of icons begging for attention. When Windows is installed, and there are just 5 icons there, it may (almost) make sense. But a few months later, most users have dozens of icons, pointing to all sorts of programs and files, and users start spending up to a minute to find the icon they need in all this mess. Wouldn't it have been better to use a textual menu? Of course it would, which is why the Start menu was finally added to MS-Windows. Too bad people continue to (ab)use the desktop. -- Nadav Har'El | Friday, Feb 9 2007, 22 Shevat 5767 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |For people who like peace and quiet - a http://nadav.harel.org.il |phoneless cord. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
