Re: Screen captures in multiple lanaguages or just in English? was, "RE: Examples of Minimalist Writing"

[John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com>]

Yes. Your idea of an intuitive icon might not be mine ... In specialized 
applications where icons might be a tad esoteric, you might have a 
situation where pictures would be helpful. When an instruction says 
"click the Change Schedule button" I want to be able to see which icon 
they mean without having to try and figure it out. And as far as 
translation goes, most icons remain the same regardless of language. 
Icon/text combinations may get you in trouble, though.

I always try to create a page in Help with every icon and button in the 
application on it along with a definition, and have gotten unsolicited 
feedback that it is a very useful and helpful page for users.

And another thing ... I just got a Mac recently and have had a tough 
time trying to puzzle out what some of the icons mean, and that's 
probably one of the most thoroughly usability researched UIs anywhere. 
If they can't make it foolproof, no one can. And, contrary to some 
opinions, I ain't just any fool ...


My 2¢,

John G

Robert Lauriston said the following on 10/5/2009 12:41 PM:
> Is there any situation where placing a picture of a button is more
> useful than simply typing the text (which is much faster and cheaper
> to translate)?
>   

-- 
john -at- garisons -dot- com

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