[thelist] graphical representation of abstract programming concepts

mccreath mccreath at ak.net
Sun Feb 24 22:16:01 CST 2002


[sent this once already about a half hour ago, but haven't seen it show up
in the archives. sorry if it doubles. - d]

Wow. No takers, huh? I love iconography. I don't get to do enough of it. :)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Howden
>
> i'm currently in the midst of developing a debugging utility and
> am stuck at a phase of the project i'm not so good at --
> design/iconography.

> i've done a fair bit of researching in the hopes of finding some
> icons that represent things like arrays (indexed), structures
> (associative arrays), queries, strings, numbers, booleans, wddx
> packets (xml), etc.

Is this for a specific language? I know you spend most of your day in CF and
JS, so I'm making the assumption that it's for one of those langauages.

> alternatively, i'd be interested in talking to members of this list or
> people anyone from this list can recommend who are capable of constructing
> these icons.

I think there are three primary considerations in the design of icons:

Action vs. Object: Most commonly, an icon will describe or symbolize an
action that will be taken (delete, create, etc.) or it will describe or
symbolize item to be acted on (a document, an application, etc.)

Abstract vs. Concrete: You also have the choice of making the icon
representation of the object or action, or making it very abstract and
simple being consistent with its use, assuming that the user will become
familiar with the symbol Think of the icon for SCSI. Does anyone know what
that is actually supposed to represent? I don't. Now think of the icon for
USB. It's still abstract, but it is a bunch of lines converging on one
point. Is either one better? Not necessarily.

Symbolic vs. Real: If you go with a concrete representation, do you try to
figure out how to represent the action/object, or do you try to come up with
a real-world symbol that people will intuit. Think about email. An email
message is nearly universally represented as an envelope, even though email
has very little to do with paper envelopes. But it gets the message across.

> one of the tougher requirements is that the icons need to be
> recognizable at
> 16x16, though it'd be nice to have 32x32 versions available as well.

So do you want these to be buttons? Is it going to be a Windows app, or a
browser app? Color range?

Is the application designed such that the user will first learn the 32x32,
so that the 16x16 can be less recognizable than otherwise might be required?
Or will the 16x16 be the first impression?

> anybody have any ideas?

I haven't ever seen the sorts of icons you're looking for, but I'd be happy
to toss some ideas back and forth. Maybe a few other people will get in on
the discussion, too.

David




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