Re[2]: Icons

[Rob Marriage <rmarriage -at- DETECTIONSYS -dot- COM>]

     Wayne Douglass wrote:

     >In general, when I see cute icons I reach for my air sickness bag,
     but I'm surely in a minority here.<

     I think we're in agreement. However, in my case, I'm mostly writing
     2-4 page installation guides for motion detectors and smoke detectors
     and the like. Quite often, an installer just looks at the wiring
     diagram and throws the thing up on the wall. Soon we'll be releasing
     an add-on product that could damage the whole system (and the
     installer for that matter) if not connected properly. For this reason
     I don't want the installer to ignore my warnings. And, with the
     exception of the wiring diagram there usually aren't many graphics in
     these little in-guides. So I think that an icon or two should attract
     some attention.

     >Do yourself a favor, Rob. Create a dummy page where you use all of
     your icons and see what it looks like. What seems like a good idea
     where there is only one icon per page can look pretty awful or silly
     when there are more than one.<

     That's a good idea. Some other people suggested that. And, in
     our longer documents (e.g., control panel programming manuals and
     system manuals), we'll include the icons and their meanings in the
     preface. You're right though, too many icons on a page can have one of
     two effects. It can make you begin to ignore them, or it can make your
     teeth itch.

Rob

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