gis usability 'games'

introduction

Are you proficient with GIS?
Well, if yes, why would you think that is? Because they are easy and intuitive to use or because you spent a considerate amount of time learning it?! My guess is the latter.
Well, and if not, are you struggling to become better? Why do you think you have to struggle?

It is a given that GIS offer a huge amount of functionality and naturally, it takes some time to get an idea when to use what. But still, much of their usability flaws do not go back to this vastness of features but rather are a product of bad design and co-operation between vendors.

For example, what is the difference between geoworkspace, project, and relation?

What do you think pressing 'CTRL' + 'A' will do? Mind that usually this shortcut will lead to 'select all'!

What do you think these icons have in common?
arcview_fullextent arcgis_fullextent idrisi_fullextent geomedia_fitall

Well, if you are curious and want to play around a little bit with your knowledge, then read on...

guess the icon meaning

GIS offer a huge amount of functionalities. Some of these are hidden from "ordinary" users, but can be found either in separate folders or via the command line interfaces. Today, most of these functionalities come with a picture representation, the icon. It is thus of utmost importance that the

metaphor that the icon represents, is intuitive
icon is simple
icon denotes the meaning explicitly

Today, it is still rather common to have

complex tasks to be expressed in 1 single icon, such as interpolate the data with settings x and y. Difficult as it is to find a sound interpolation icon, this would mean that even more information is to be put into the picture represenation.
icons that apparently "struggle" to circumvent a clear meaning, such as

This icon denotes execution!

This icon shows a dragon → 'drag on' just like from 'drag & drop'!
several icons for the same metaphor, such as

Sorry, I made this up :-)
But it is not worse than the others

This icon is rebuilt from ArcView !

This icon is rebuilt from Microsoft Access !

This icon can be found in many programming environments!

What do you think? Is one better suited than the others? Are all equally well designed? Which would you prefer? Why?
And, most importantly, is the covered functionality obvious?
I guess, after four icons you might have noticed it is "execution" or "run" in this case :-).

is there a solution to this problem?

Well, of course there is. I will write more about it, when I have some time, but for now let me just say that in my opinion it all comes down to semiotics | and ontologies.