Iconitis

[Rob Bernardo]

Walter Bright writes something I agree with:
+What's wrong with icons is not necessarily icons, but what I've called
+"iconitis". This is the religious fervor by which an icon is invented
+for every command, because icons are 'better'.
+
+I've also seen a lot of effort expended to come up with an icon for 'Help'.
+Those people got mad when I suggested the string 'Help' would do nicely.

But then he continues with an unfortunate analogy:
+The end result of iconitis is Chinese. Chinese has an icon for every word
+ and concept, and the result is, well, have you ever tried to learn it?

And Robert J. Drabek comments:
+I can't let this go by.  It is now obvious that strings in English could
+be misunderstood as well.  Note the author of the above is known by the
+the string "Walter Bright"; with such a label we could be mislead as to
+his intelligence.  :-) Come on.  Yes, I have tried to learn it (Chinese).
+So have over a billion other people for a couple of thousand years.  And
+they had no problem.  Their reaction, by the way, to learning
+string-oriented languages is pretty negative.
+
+The reading speed of native Chinese and native English literates is very
+close.  From my observation, the Chinese system may even have a (very)
+slight advantage.

The Chinese writing system *used to be* iconic, but no longer is. An
iconic sign is one which denotes its referent because it *resembles*
its referent. Chinese characters and English words are not iconic,
but symbolic signs, i.e. they denote their referents due to a
*conventional* association between the sign and the referent (onomatopeia
aside). (Follow ups to sci.lang or sci.philosophy.)

In any case, with this distinction in mind, we might rephrase what Walter
Bright had to say as:

	1. Use only an icon that clearly depicts the intended referent,
	or else it isn't a good icon.
	
	2. Use an icon if it communicates more effectively than a symbol
	purely sign (such as a word or letter).

In other words, using an icon for the sake of using an icon is not
using an icon for the sake of better communication.
-- 
Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell UNIX/C Reusable Code Library
Email:     ...![backbone]!pacbell!pbhyf!rob   OR  rob at pbhyf.PacBell.COM
Office:    (415) 823-2417  Room 4E850O San Ramon Valley Administrative Center
Residence: (415) 827-4301  R Bar JB, Concord, California