Icons mean nothing to me. Do they mean something to you?

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In some ways I am really good at using computers, but I have a problem using computers in other ways, particularly programs with icon-based interfaces. The icons mean nothing to me. Each time I use an icon-based interface that doesn't have words, I get so frustrated, because I can't tell what the icons mean. It takes me a really long time to try to figure out what each one does I can spend many minutes trying to figure out what a button means, and when there are multiple buttons this can take a really long time.

This is particularly noticeable when using phones or when using browsers like Safari or programs like Microsoft Word, where the ability to use text labels is non-existent.

Does this sound familiar to anyone here?

No, I typically don't have any trouble understanding what icons mean, though I do prefer text based interfaces.

Usually there will be tooltips to tell you what they mean if you can't figure it out visually.

For a while I had a hard time finding the "save" icon in some Linux programs, since they replaced the old floppy disk symbol with a box and a downward arrow. =p

Initially I have issues with it as well, but I am the "what does this button do?" type of guy. So I figure it out eventually. It also means that if my dad hands me his phone and thinks I can fix him something on it, I'll just go by intuition and hope for the best that his contacts are still on there when I hand it back, lol. Luckily intuitively I'm decent enough to keep that from happening every single time.

But yes, icons without words confuse me at the start until I've understood and memorized what they do.