• Jerkface@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        12 hours ago

        If your discord server is inundated with people who have no idea which one of these damn buttons save, yeah. I saw the same thing happen on a PHPBB in 2010. To many, that icon means nothing.

        • missfrizzle@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          11 hours ago

          icons are basically ideograms. floppy disks might be the etymology of the save icon, but kids will learn it means “save” the same way Chinese kids learn that 人 means “person” (a simplified rendering of the original Bone Oracle glyph, which depicted a person from the side)

          as another example, you used the word “inundated” which comes from the Latin unda meaning “wave,” as in waves overcoming a building. but you learned to use that word without needing the history lesson behind it.

          • Jerkface@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 hours ago

            Sure, except when they don’t. Like what happened with that dev on that board in 2010.

            • potpotato@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              10 hours ago

              How do play, pause, or stop icons mean anything? They were around for decades before me and I just learned that was how those actions were communicated.

              • Jerkface@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                9 hours ago

                Likely in the way that the previous commenter described. They’re not wrong, it just wasn’t a question of how. It was more that sometimes the transmission of information fails.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      12 hours ago

      These days I’m starting to see more and more of an arrow pointing down towards a hard drive, a file folder, or an outbox bin. I feel like that’s a suitable replacement.

      Simple icon line art of an arrow pointing down towards a paper outbox bin