We could re-use the icon that's used for the "Force Quit" GNOME Panel applet, the picture of a window with a big crack down it. I think that signifies "broken program" as well as anything else could.
On Sat, 2007-02-10 at 12:14 +0200, Donn wrote: > Hi, > Thanks for your great feedback. > > I've tried the icon on my boyfriend, and he was totally clueless; he > > offered possibilities such as "notepad", or "drawing", but he did not > > guess what the bug meant in the first place. It is not a statistically > > meaningful experiment, but he's an architect used to computers -- > > *windows* computers, unfortunately ;-). > You are correct, for example I cannot imagine what someone in Thailand thinks > of a 'bug' or someone in Sweden, etc. I was basing it on my point of view and > also on the computer "culture" where there are several memes > like "bugs", "windows", "cursors" and so on, however you are quite correct > that they are all English words. It's amazing, to me, to hear about the > word "fallos" -- I made the automatic assumption that a picture of a bug > would translate in anyone's mind into the same meme. > > Wow, what to do ...? > > How would we universally express the concept of "program error report"? > > Perhaps we would find that it is not possible. I have argued before (it might > have been this list) that all artwork should be based on the *locale*. This > makes the task much larger, icons for everything would have to be > independently created for every language, but I think it could be faced, and > made quite efficient -- perhaps only a small percentage of icons will end-up > being confusing, like my "bug" icon was. > > <mad idea> > Perhaps a website could be started where people could "vote" for their > favourite icons in each locale. We would present whatever icons we have now, > and whatever new ones artists want to quickly sketch. The idea would be to > see which symbols represent which concepts in the minds of the audiences of > each language. We could have categories (translated, natch) in each locale > with concepts like: > "file", "folder", "mouse", "open", "close", "new", "delete", "create", > "error", "mail" > and so on -- covering the basic verb/noun ground of what computers and > application let us do. After that we can realistically begin to produce icons > that actually speak to the people who will use them. > </mad idea> > > > Again, I insist that the icons are very well done and I do find them cute. > And thanks for your input. > > Donn > > -- > Once you start believing in things for which there's no evidence, where do > you > stop? > -- Sackett http://forums.randi.org > > -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art