[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[foobar]

On Monday, 23 January 2012 at 18:11:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 1/23/2012 3:51 AM, foobar wrote:
>> A few additional points:
>> # Microsoft allegedly does a lot of usability research and 
>> they came up with the
>> upcoming Metro design which relies on text instead of icons. # 
>> Regarding the
>> English language - Icons are supposed to be universal so it 
>> saves money for
>> companies to localize their software. Localized UIs do present 
>> a trade off in
>> usability: It depends which terminology is more common, the 
>> local or the foreign
>> (English). E.g. "print" is easy to translate and would be 
>> intuitive for non
>> techies but "bittorent" probably isn't.
>
> One huge issue with "universal" icons is that each company 
> copyrights theirs. So every user interface uses deliberately 
> different icons.

Oh, I totally agree with you. That's why I said "supposed to". :)
I had the same issue at my last work as Don, could never figure 
out the phone icons.