A new symbol has recently been adopted on websites to indicate hidden menus.
While the attempt to standardize website usability is notable, there are
good and bad ways to adopt these new symbols.
Below is the symbol as found on a website that will remain
anonymous.
Notice the use of the symbol without any indication of what
it means.
For a novice web surfer,
this symbol might be passed up completely. Because this symbols meaning is
lost on those users, the user may never move past the landing page.
Believe it or not, there are still many
people who are novice web surfers, both young and old.
If symbols like
this are adopted as a standard, designers might be able to get away with using
just the symbol, but for now the best way to adopt this symbol is to use the
image as well as a text indication of what the symbol means.
Below is an excellent example of the
proper implementation of this symbol.
Symbols are a great way to communicate.
Whether used to indicate to the user
that they should take an action, or to indicate how to connect to social media,
symbols are cross-cultural tools that break down divisions created by language
barriers.
Already there are some universal symbols
that have been adopted across cultural divides.
The most obvious examples are hazard symbols.
The two examples above of a new symbol for hidden menus, show
that a set of standard symbols for interactive design that can be adopted bridging the differences among websites divided by language. The design community just needs to be aware that symbols take time for universal acceptance, which means using words to clarify the symbols meaning until that time comes.
