I agree. Maybe I'd add the three horizontal line 'hamburger' for menu, folder, plus sign for 'create new" and directional arrows for back/forward. Maybe around a dozen all in but that's about it. Anything else should have words.
Instead, I find myself trying to puzzle out what the hell some cryptic pictogram means, very frustrating. I also have really come to despise this trend of not visually signifying that an icon is a pressable button.
> Maybe I'd add the three horizontal line 'hamburger' for menu
Fun fact, the original icon for this was more like:
/-----\
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| --- |
Because it visually represented a menu popping up from the bottom of the screen where the button was on Android phones. Back in this era and earlier, the three horizontal lines represented grips that indicated you could click+drag an element on a webpage.
I wasn’t originally a fan of the hamburger menu icon (it’s not self-explanatory, you have to know what it means), but there was already precedence in Windows 1.0 for the so-called system menu for each application: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Windows1.0.pn...
> I wasn’t originally a fan of the hamburger menu icon (it’s not self-explanatory
I definitely agree. I just think that it's just been so common in GUIs for long enough to be one of the few that's probably safe to just assume will be understood. Sort of like the two vertical bars for 'pause' on a media player.
I hate that it’s being used on the desktop, where there is plenty of space, resulting in a smaller hit target and often an additional click for items that would normally be top-level. Even on mobile, there would often be sufficient space to show a word like “Menu”.
Instead, I find myself trying to puzzle out what the hell some cryptic pictogram means, very frustrating. I also have really come to despise this trend of not visually signifying that an icon is a pressable button.