Language icon
Reading the most popular posts of 2009 from the interesting blog Global by design, I´ve found one article about the need for a standard language change / choose icon. Many icons have become quite standard in the web world: rss icon, share icons, etc.. But when it comes to choose language every website create a new way of doing it. Sometimes is a flag, an world icon, a map or hundreds more.
There is now a new iniciative called Language Icon from OMC that proposes this icon to choose languages. What do you think about it? Does it make you to choose your language in a website?
January 1st, 2010 at 6:47 pm
No, I wouldn’t dare to click it. It looks like a diskette and that somehow does not make sense on a web page, except I would like to save it.
January 1st, 2010 at 9:00 pm
looks like a warehouse
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Seems pretty useless. Either that, or I’m too dumb to see a point.
http://languageicon.org/examples.php
I don’t understand how this little square can possibly be more helpful than a plain old “select your language:”, or flags.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:45 am
I think it does make sense. It makes it easier to find the language selection. You just have to get used to the icon. I actually like the design as it is simple, distinctive, unique, and abstract. The problem with the phrase “select your language” or something similar is that you have to know the language it’s written in. The icon, however, is universal. I like the idea a lot. Go for it, Forvo! :-)
January 5th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Seems quite useful to me! Say for example that you are on a site that is by default in a language that you do not understand. While you may not recognize the Russian phrase for “Change Language” in its native Cyrillic script, if this icon were used you would not need to understand in order to switch to your language. Some web designers may be reluctant to place a bulky drop-down language select menu smack in the middle of their page, while a neat, concise icon could do the job and only take up a fraction of the space. Plus the icon designers were kind enough to allow multiple variants of the icon so that one can choose an icon that does not clash with the rest of the page. Little conveniences like this may not seem that useful at first, but they are more than worth the effort in the long run.
January 8th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I agree with Sven, this looks like a common diskette icon (Google images for ‘diskette icon’ and set Options, Size to Icon). The Language Icons site says: “Why this glyph? : Because it is not related to any other idea or symbol, it does not signify something else, it is exlusive (sic) for selecting language.” This is not true for me. My immediate reaction to this icon is that it will open a pop-up dialogue to Save. Compare to the Save icon in Microsoft Word.