Talk:Icon (computing)
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 | The contents of List of icon software was merged into Icon (computing) on 6 June 2011. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. For the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
Whole load of problems
[edit]This article seems to have a lot of issues:
- The lead sentence says icons are specifically displayed on computer screens, but the "Types" section seems to contradict that by also implying that some hardware symbols qualify as icons ("on the hardware, these icons identify...")
- The article's definition of an icon seems to be too strict; it defines them as "pictograms or ideograms", but some icons do not appear to resemble any physical object (e.g. the power symbol), and the term "ideogram" seems to refer exclusively to writing system characters – and thus is probably not applicable to more general symbols not used in writing (note: the Ideogram article does claim pictograms are a subclass of ideogram, but that may be an inaccuracy of that article as well). The article's definition also somewhat contradicts this source it uses. Merriam Webster's definition of "icon" simply states "a graphic symbol".
- The "Overview" section appears to be stoned, to put it bluntly – it goes on all sorts of wild, seemingly original research tangents that don't make much sense. I hesitated to delete the section only because I'd be sawing the article in half if I did.
- A lot of sources are unreliable and/or irrelevant to what they're being cited for; for instance, the "Types" section cites a guide article on UI design to explain that hardware "icons" identify the functionality of buttons/plugs, and subsequently cites a Berkeley Lab publication on power switch labeling to explain that in software, icons "provide a link into the customizable settings".