Perplexing, Confusing, and Inscrutable Icons

We live in a world of icons. But many are confusing. Although I have programmed computers since before MS-DOS was invented, I still can't figure out most of these darned computer icons. Computer and software manufacturers like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft are the biggest culprits here. IBM's manuals no longer have actual words--just numbers and pictures. No doubt it saves printing costs. The cost of translating a twenty-page manual into French, German, Swahili, Urdu, Vietnamese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Tangut, R'lyehian, Goa'uld, Quenya, and !Kung must be enormous.

These icons are really evolving into a new form of language. From a linguistic point of view, that is an interesting development. But we already have a language composed almost entirely of icons. It's called Chinese. Their icons have been refined and honed to perfection over thousands of years. They are no more difficult or obscure than the icons on your digital camera, VCR, or Windows program, but they have been specifically created to be easy to draw. Just try drawing some of these computer icons and see how long it takes.

My question is, why are we creating new icons instead of using Chinese? Most of our stuff is made in China anyway. And at the same time, we could be learning something that would be useful in Chinese restaurants ("I'll have the 'Print Salad' and a large serving of 'Mu Shi Save to Clipboard' ").

Below is a list of some of the more confusing and obscure icons I've run across, along with their meaning.

Obscure Icons List

Icon	Source	Meaning
	HP	Do not throw this calculator away. Do people really recycle their lithium calculator batteries? Or are they just trying to keep them away from meth labs?
	Nikon	Although they look obscure, these icons found on the back of a Nikon camera are actually very similar to Chinese. For example, the Chinese word for "mountain" (山) is very similar to the double triangle icon shown here. So kudos to Nikon. If you want to take a picture of a chess board, just press the third button. Or does the third button cause lightning? Or will it do something to your eyes, like setting off the flash the instant you turn the camera around to see why you didn't get a picture? No. That function is performed by the second button.
	Box	These icons on a cardboard box sort of make sense. Left: Item in box is already broken, don't worry about dropping it. Right: May have contained liquids before glass container in box got smashed.
	LTSpice	Okay, I know some of these. The hammer icon means if you're so frustrated at the computer you just want to smash it, click here. The second row, reading from the left, is "Hi!", "Live long and prosper!", and an Italian icon meaning, "I'm a gonna getta you, you bastard!"
	VegaZZ	Some icons from VegaZZ, a molecular modeling program. Most of them are self-explanatory, like "Blue Cross" for when you injure yourself while using the computer. But what could the Rubik's cube icon do? Would you have guessed, "Edit molecule?" If so, you would have been right. But then, what does the "nuclear" icon do? I was afraid to click it to find out.
	Adobe (top) and PDF Complete	Top: Get behind Adobe ... Go West, young man ... and Go Nuclear. Bottom: Go left and right, Get girl, and Become Deformed Mutant.
	Rivets	Warning! Made in USA! Shield your eyes--may cause blindness! Give this rivet company one star for actually manufacturing something in this country. But take it away because they have to write it in Spanish, because most of the people who actually use the item are from Mexico anyway.
	Screws	May contain screws. Or maybe, as your shop teacher told you, "Stop screwing around!"
	MS Word	This one, from Microsoft Word, takes the cake. (Or should I say, takes the ). If tooltips somehow got turned off on my computer, it would be impossible for me to figure out what half these icons are for. The only solution would be to go out into the street and find a nine-year-old kid and pay him or her to explain it to me: "Hey kid, I'll give you twenty bucks to tell me what this dog icon does."

Here is another site that shows some inscrutable icons: http://www.baddesigns.com/autoicons.html

Got even better icons? Send 'em in and I'll add them here.
back