[dnpls]

So you believe it's easier to learn which combination of letters in the context of a given interface means "home" or "chat" than an icon? You don't understand how the human brain works, it's much quicker to discern an icon as you glance at a screen then find a word and get your brain to interpret their meaning. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, an enormous amount of dictionary words, but it very unusual to have a single screen containing more than 10 different icons.

[blueflow]

To understand icons, they must resemble something you have seen before. If you were born in 2005, you won't know what the button with the floppy disk on it does because you have never seen or used a floppy.

Or a cloud to mean "upload", or a thin moon crescent to mean "sleep".

These are things that don't derive from the real world (any more) and must be explicitly communicated.