alt Hacker News> Hey, unless you can articulate a really good reason to add this, maybe our default posture should be no icons in menus?
Challenge accepted. If a user (esp. one whose cognition generally prefers visual media) uses a menu item frequently, they can remember its icon and that makes it easier to find in the future.
(Doesn't apply to me personally though because I'll instead remember the underlined letter and press it next time. My pet peeve in menus is not icons, but missing or clashing hotkeys.)
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mikepurvis • today at 1:41 AM
Almost 30 years ago MS Office 97 was putting toolbar icons in their menus, and I think it served the useful function of helping users discover when functionality was available another way.
I think icons aren't a bad idea, if they are visually distinct and make sense. For the longest time, the icon for "link" and "attachment" in Gmail looked almost identical.
They changed it recently for attachment to look like a paperclip on a document which is much better. But before, I almost always clicked on one when I wanted the other (or hovered my mouse over it for longer than I'd care to admit).