For GUIs, Just the Right Degree of Realism

mr crypto writes "User interfaces make copious use of pictures and symbols, but how abstract should images be? Lukas Mathis has an interesting blog entry on where to draw the line."

Comments

Re:Confusing icon practices

[rantingkitten]

My experience is that people will click with wild abandon when they shouldn't, and be deathly afraid to do anything when there's no real harm involved.

These are the people who will install anything they damn well please, change important settings for absolutely no reason "because it seemed like a good idea", set passwords on things that don't need passwords and then forget them, forward phone A to phone B and phone B to phone A because "I wanted them both to ring if I got a call," and other general nonsense. They have no problem screwing around to their heart's content and breaking everything and never learning.

That same person will also submit endless tickets or place endless helpdesk calls because they were afraid to change a trivial setting that involves a single, labelled checkbox, because "I wasn't sure if that would mess anything up."