[hawski]

For a long time now I see it in myself and other's around me (like my father, my in-laws, my wife), that icons do not work. Icons change too much and every app has its own set of icons, all of them highly abstract to the point of meaninglessness. Almost every Skype call with my in-laws has a non-trivial percentage dedicated to troubleshooting. They use it for years now and lately my father in-law started using YouTube almost every day, they still have problems with those pesky icons.

When I have to help one of them via phone or the Internet it's always a recital of trying to describe the icon, that they are supposed to click. I always have to tell either "third from the left", or "a rectangle with a triangle". If it's a text button it usually is simple, they can even enumerate the buttons.

Try helping someone without intimate knowledge of the thing they use or without visual aid and tell me that icons work.