For example, in my browser I see two arrow icons, a circular arrow, a stop sign and and a house. In Apple mail there is an open envelope, a no bozo circle, a bag of mail, a single back arrow, two back arrows and a straight forward arrow. Lastly a paper with pencil.

Now, outside of context, many of these would fail to convey the tasks at hand. The “New Message” note with pencil icon does convey writing. The house = home. Stop is pretty clear.

But I think it’s fascinating to not that the arrows no longer say “back or forward”. Netscape pretty much defined this intent when in this placement.

That said, I find Apple Mail’s no bozo sign to give no relevance to “Delete”. If I were to assume from context I would think that button would block the address of the email I had selected. I think the universal trash/recycling bin would be a better conveyance.

I also think there is something to be said about animated icons. A simple animation can sometimes clarify what would otherwise be an rather abstract concept to convey.

- Jason “The Saj”