Are Web Icons a Modern Form of
Illiterate Communication for the Dumbest
Generation?
How do you communicate with
an illiterate population? That's a problem I hadn't thought of before,
but on a recent trip to Europe I was fascinated to learn how medieval
towns and merchants solved the problem of how to communicate with a
population that couldn't read. Their solution was to use elaborate
symbols that reminded me a lot of the iconography developed for
websites and other computer devices. I couldn't help putting this
together with the idea of Mark Bauerlein's new book The Dumbest
Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and
Jeopardizes Our FutureComplex Store Signs in Salzburg Austria
Another example of using pictures
to communicate with non-readers is the amazing Salzburg street market
pictured on the left. This is a very long street with markets running
seemingly forever on either side. Imagine yourself a worker who
couldn't read. How would you what stores were available just looking
down the street? You couldn't know so the elaborately descriptive store
signs evolved so people could tell what a store sold. Here's the sign
for a McDonalds:
German Maypole's Use Pictures to
Represent Town Services
Many German towns feature a maypole in the
town square. In addition to being big and beautiful, a maypole
communicates to an illiterate population what services can be found in
the town with a picture symbolizing the service. Take a look at the
maypole
in Munich. It's gorgeous. Look closely and you'll see
pictures of beer barrels which would tell you Munich has a beer
available. And oh boy is that true! If there's a bakery you'll see a
picture of a baker. If there's a wood cutter you'll see a picture of a
wood cutter.
It's all picture based so you can just
look and immediately understand what you'll find in a
town.
Scan a webpage, an OS GUI,
or a cell phone interface and I think you get a very similar feel to
the ancient maypole symbols and store signs. I can't help but wonder if
over time text will drop out as people stop readining and we develop
ever more intricate graphical symbol systems to communicate instead of
relying on text? Everyhing old is new
again.
6:45:35 PM 
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