[WEB4LIB] Re: Library Websites that use

[K.G. Schneider]

> Another use of icons that helps are those orange rss icons. When I
> look at a site and wonder if they have RSS feeds I often scan for that
> icon. If I don't see it I might glance for text about syndication but

This is an example of an icon that is only useful for experts. I look for it
myself, but I agree with others who say this icon is badly named, whether it
is called RSS or even worse, XML (we use the latter on our site but plan to
change it). (Well, RSS has a whole naming issue, a story for another day.)
If you don't know that the orange icon means "here lies an RSS feed," it is
meaningless, and if you click on it, you see puzzling code. It's not unlike
naming all links on a page "HTML." And yet if you rename the link to a text
link called "syndication," people looking for the orange icon miss it. 

I'm glad the questions about icons and testing came up, and particularly the
comment about huge mysterious icons in catalogs, and also the distinction
between big graphics and actual icons. 

Not sure what testing would reveal about the little print/mail icons, but I
see NY Times and Epicurious offer the icons AND write out Email/Print. 

I dimly recall reading, almost a decade ago, that one issue with icons is
forcing the user to translate from the picture to what it means--not unlike
when libraries use all kinds of colored dots on books which require patrons
to refer back to lists to translate what those dots mean. 

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com