Just made me wonder the other day. Office 2013 still uses the floppy disk icon to save.
Now the current generation of kids for example have no idea what a floppy is, what it looks like and what that symbol is meant to be.
They could make it look like a USB?
Heh, seems like every tech site must discuss this one to death at least once a year - I guess VOGONS is no exception. :)
wrote:They could make it look like a USB?
The problem with that (or any other kind of media you choose to represent it instead) is that the same issue would just repeat itself in the future, since all kinds of media will become obsolete eventually. Some would say that an SD card is more appropriate, then in a few years some will demand a "cloud" icon, and then who knows what. If the icon needs to represent the idea itself, use something like a life preserver or a safe (or as the old joke goes, a picture of Jesus).
Honestly though, I don't think there's any need to change it at all. Our brains are perfectly capable of associating symbols with meanings, even if visually they no longer make a lot of sense. Take our alphabets - we use the letter L to represent a certain phonetic value, but we don't necessarily need to know that its shape evolved from a prehistoric cattle-prod, used by certain ancient tribes whose word for it began with that sound.
