[jpe-210]

But users can grow accustomed to what an icon means over time right? It happened with the floppy disk icon, the notification bell, open folder, etc. If you start it out as [icon][description] for the first few iterations wouldn't the user eventually learn to associate the icon for the action?

[reaperducer]

But users can grow accustomed to what an icon means over time right?

Only if you use the same program all the time, and only if that program never changes.

I use Adobe Illustrator a couple of times a year. There's no way I'm going to remember how to do very much from the ten minutes I used it in March to the next time I need it in October. And by then, the process is likely to have changed because the program got auto-updated by the Almighty Cloud™.

[wruza]

I can only learn colorful icons. B&W ones I cannot recognize even after a long time. E.g. right now I'm looking at my opera sidebar and cannot quickly decide which icon is history. Much easier to open O-menu and navigate from there, which is what I always do to erase that last hour. Same for downloads - I know where they are at the top-right corner and I click "Show more" there instead. Can't find it in sidebar without thinking twice.

Btw, I have no trouble using Paint.NET. I just made a screenshot of its UI and turned B&W. Icons instantly became less discernible, and that still with correct shades of grey. If they were this modern outline-abstract bullshit, I couldn't use it at all and would look for an alternative.

[alxlaz]

That only works if icons remain consistent and reasonably detailed over long periods of time. Nowadays all icons are abstract, monochrome shapes. They are similar enough to each other, and vary enough from one application to another, that one application's "back" or "new" buttons can look pretty similar to another's "undo" or "copy" buttons. With most apps on my phone I have no idea what the buttons do unless I press them, even if I'm perfectly familiar with the function.

[JKCalhoun]

For better or worse, the web (and now all the various portable devices we carry around) introduced users to all manner of user interfaces. I think we're a little more flexible now. Or are we a little haggard?