The democracy of the dead

I'm currently working on a pitch design. When it came to adding the home button, I decided to use a style that would set it apart from the rest of the menu items, given that a user would typically enter the site via the home page more often than not. In that scenario, their immediate attention should be directed towards the other menu items (among other things).So I threw "house" into Google Image Search and set it to show only small results. This sometimes allows me to find clipart that I can trace and rework in Photoshop, as opposed to creating something from scratch - I'm ignorant when it comes to drawing vectors. I soon realised that "home" would be more appropriate, and tried that instead with more success.

Using icons is a tricky business because you hope (or assume, depending on who you are) that the user will make the association between the icon and it's meaning or purpose. Although 'home' is common enough to be used safely, after creating the button, I stopped to think why it's even used in the first place. It's logical in web browsers: when you hit the home button you return to the home page you've set. On a particular website, clicking through to a different page will take you to a new room, but you're still in the same house, and it's here that I feel the concept fails. I ditched the icon in favour of type. In fact, I very rarely use icons in navigation.

The same thinking applies to other traditionally used icons. Take 'download' for example - typically some kind of storage medium (hard drive, CD/DVD, stiffy disk), an arrow, or a combination of the two. Firefox represents 'download' as an arrow pointing into a box, Opera as a stiffy disk, etc. Within this virtual medium, we need to have that association between virtual and real for anything to have meaning. An envelope for e-mail, a shopping basket for a purchase, a lock for security, etc. But when was the last time you downloaded an application small enough to fit on a stiffy disk, let alone saw one?

Maybe we don't take enough time to stop and think about these design conventions and their purpose. Changing convention is difficult. Once users become familiar with the association between an icon and it's meaning, there's a fine line to becoming counterproductive when introducing something new and expecting to achieve the same results. Even if that association is as stupid as using a magnifying glass to represent searching - in the context of the web, of course. It could just as easily have been a spider.

Have you ever wondered why Microsoft named it a "Start" menu instead of "Home"?

I'm not about to start challenging conventions, introduce button standards, or give tradition the finger and represent 'download' as a porcelain bowl. But if not to change anything, then let's question what we do and why, only to reassure ourselves that it's the right way.

UPDATE [16/09]: Nintendo's next-generation console system Revolution Controller finally revealed: a cordless remote-control-like device designed to be used with only one hand. With a 'home' button.