Power On/Off: Symbology Explained

http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/good-questions/power-onoff-symbology-explained-144370

by wallflower • 15 years ago

75 12 15 years ago

cleverjake• 15 years ago

when I was a kid, I always remembered the difference by thinking of the line as a pipe that lets electricity flow, and the circle as something blocking that pipe (and therefore blocking the flow)

otto• 15 years ago

I always thought it was from binary. 1 being on and 0 off.

Samuel_Michon• 15 years ago

According to the article, that's exactly where it came from.

Sadly, the symbols mentioned in the article aren't always used the way they should. For instance, earlier today there was a link on HN about an HTML5 audio player, Speakker [1], which uses the standby symbol as a play button. Confuses the hell out of me.

[1] http://www.speakker.com/demo/

peteforde• 15 years ago

Symbology? I'm sure the word you were looking for was "symbolism." What is the ssss-himbolism there?

X-Istence2• 15 years ago

Ah, good ol' Boondock Saints.

Symbology is the study of symbols, whereas symbolism is the use of a symbol to represent ideas or qualities.

One could say he is studying the symbols to find their symbolism? Or am I completely butchering the English language at this point? (I disclaim all responsibility as a foreign national =D)

Derbasti• 15 years ago

I never quite figured out why the non-binary symbols looked the way they do. Thanks for showing me.

toast76• 15 years ago

How is that I never drew the connection between on/off and binary! So simple! I must be an engineer.... facepalm

MediaBehavior• 15 years ago

I never "saw" the one-penetrating-zero symbol as presenting ones and zeroes. I bet non-geeks definitely didn't.

I see that as a usability issue. I'm willing to bet that IEC did no usability studies. Compounding the issue... did they do any public-awareness campaigns? If so, they all missed me :/

Related issue: Menus (my Apple devices/software seem particularly acute) that don't tell you a current on/off state - but expect you to deduce it from the fact that (apparently) the option to shift to the other state is available (non-greyed-out).

dipankarsarkar• 15 years ago

Was thinking about this the other day ! Thanks for the share

mhjerde• 15 years ago

It is misguided to expect an intuitive understanding of these symbols. And they are technically signs, not symbols. They are supposed to be learned and the primary requisite for their form is that they are easy to distinguish from other signs. Signs are arbitrary shapes with no innate meaning.

What you are referring to is maybe symbols that have a metaphorical relation or is an analogy. A symbol made to resemble something "real" that the user already knows and understands. An email symbol that looks like an envelope, a document symbol that looks like a piece of paper, you get my drift. The strange looking symbol for the save command is actually a diskette (look it up).

Unfortunately, the vast majority of signs have to be learned and can't be intuited. The letters of the alphabet is an example and so is probably 90% or more of all the "symbols" around us.

Most computer commands are "abstract" in the sense that they don't have a representation in nature that we can easily use. What would the symbol for Stop, Start, Save, Open, etc, be? What would be a good symbol for Power On? Electric spark? A rising sun? Trouble is that these already have an established meaning, sometimes religious, and often a different meaning for different cultures around the world.

The IEC power symbols have a meaning if you are an engineer or coder (the binary I and 0), but most people won't see that, so they act as signs,

Morten (user experience guy)

Hemlockz• 15 years ago

This Symbolism clicked for me the 3rd year of college for CS, it's not that intuitive, even if it seems obvious in hindsight

Power On/Off: Symbology Explained

Related Stories