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[Michael T]

Hello,
 
I originally posted this as a wishlist item on Launchpad, but was advised to send it to the appropriate
mailing list (so I hope that this is it :) ).  Something which slightly annoys me in Ubuntu (and more
generally in KDE and Gnome) is the overuse of icons in menus.  Most (if not all) GUI style guidelines
recommend only using icons in menus where they are instantly recognisable to the user, so that they can
identify the menu entry from the icon faster than they would be able to read the menu text.  See for
instance
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/chapter_17_section_3.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000356-TPXREF116.  
In other situations, the icon slows the user down, as they will automatically look at the icon before they
read the text.  If you look at for example the "K" menu in Kubuntu, you will see that every menu entry,
including every application listed, has an icon next to it, which to my mind makes it look somewhat
unprofessional.
Does anyone else have thoughts on this?  I realise of course that in many cases this is something that can
only be fixed upstream, but I wanted to start a discussion somewhere :)
 
Regards,
 
Michael
 
BTW, please excuse the messy hotmail formatting - this is my "disposable" address for posting to mailing
lists and places where the address will be publicly visible.
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