Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Answers on a postcard

Now take a look at this.
If you were setting the automatic cooking thingy wouldn't you think the hand would mean stop cooking time?It doesn't. In fact I'm not sure what it does mean but the empty dish is the stop timer. 

I'm not good at icons. We have a fancy photocopier in work that can do all sorts of things. I'm told. I use it for single and double sided copying and I had to be shown several times how to do the double-sided. You see you choose the function you want from a selection of pictures labelled 2-3, 2-1, 1-2, etc, and the logical meaning for each of those i.e. the one that makes sense to me, isn't the right meaning.

I had long arguments discussions with Alun who was working with me at the time about the irrationality of the icons. He understood them all perfectly, which just goes to show. It's a man thing. Or possibly a me thing.

It's probably why I'm not good at Guess the Emoji. For those who don't know that's a game on Facebook, a but like television's Catchphrase where you 'say what you see', except in this case you say what you see and then try and come up with something completely unrelated. Some of the clues are ridiculously easy and some - most - are unfathomable.

I should stick to what I'm good at which is ... um...


7 comments:

Ole Phat Stu said...

The icon has only THREE fingers and a thumb. So maybe it turns the buzzsaw on at random intervals?

Liz Hinds said...

That is a definite possibility,stu.

Unknown said...

I'm with you, Liz. Icons beat me and I generally press the wrong one and wonder why strange things happen with whatever appliance/office machine I'm trying to use at the time. Our brains aren't wired for this sort of instruction.

nick said...

It's not a man thing. I'm often baffled by icons as well. Trying to change the time on the oven was pure guesswork for a year or two until I figured out the procedure. And the previous owners of the house took most of the instruction manuals with them, which doesn't help.

Liz Hinds said...

I agree, Robyn.

I would be lost without my oven manual , nick.

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

My husband is brilliant at icons..or learning how to operate something..especially without a manual. But then as an ex-aircraft engineer and now an IT specialist his brain is different. It has taken me year to learn how to watch a DVD..which the grandkis thought was so funny..I think I might of known the one on your cooker Liz..one has steam coming out of it and then the other plate not..

Liz Hinds said...

I can just about manage the DVD player, Anne, but the digibox and all the rest leave me baffled.