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This idea is for a set of symbols or icons to report news so that the salient points can be absorbed 'at a glance' much like weather symbols. It would have to be specially tailored for news and I don't think you'd be able to avoid text entirely.
Some examples:
"Small earthquake in Chile.
Few dead"
would be reported by showing a small globe with a crack through it, the ISO 3166 country code for Chile ("CL"), and half a skull and crossbones symbol
"Election in Italy; Incumbent complaining"
would be reported with a symbol of a ballot box, the code for Italy ("IT"), and an unhappy face symbol.
My Weather Report
http://www.weather....ty/hourbyhour/20500 I can easily ignore the little smear and just read the predicted tempurature and chance of rain. [Galbinus_Caeli, Apr 14 2006]
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would a british smiley be drinking warm beer? |
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It is hard enough to understand news reports as it is. Now you want they to have their own special language? Big Bone for you! |
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Me=(Hates icons, can never remember what they are supposed to stand for. Is that a printer, a fax machine, a shredder?) |
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icons are great for people who cannot spell ;) |
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+ Wasn't this baked in Egypt a few thousand years ago? |
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I like it. I don't see it as being a great improvement over TV news shows that have a little scrolly bar at the bottom of the screen, but it would be an improvement to those scrolly bars. |
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I don't watch news much, and like to be able to see what's happening at a glance, and to see how long I have to wait for full coverage of stories that interest me. |
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Just don't make the symbols so obscure that we need to spend a lot of time learning them. Occasionally show a map with the day's icons arranged on it, then slide them to the bottom of the screen in the order they will be covered. + |
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[phlish], I'd propose including an icon for Weird News, and an icon for Serious And Very Complicated News - either would suggest that anyone intersted read the whole story. |
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For the headline you mentioned, how about: |
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[Weird News] [explosion] [consumer product] [Japan] [no dead] |
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Actually, I had no trouble understanding at a glance those headlines you used. For me, I think the headlines are faster than interpreting a group of symbols would be. Which, when I think about it doesn't really make that much sense since I translate the words in to representative tokens in my head to make sense of them. |
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They're not necessarily well formed, simplistic, little pictures, but there is this blobby, rough shape accompanied by images of old Italian architecture and such that represents Italy and a flash image of a politician addressing a crowd, from behind a podium on an elevated platform, amidst falling confetti that pops in to my head when I see "election". |
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So, maybe you're right and it's only me that would prefer words. |
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Isn't this how chinese script started off? Except for the news and the TV or Internet bit. |
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