> It also makes me think about the classic Save icon: the floppy disk. That was certainly descriptive at its origination, but is it still so?

This is a pet peeve of mine and it feels like some cargo cult within the UI design "field". There's nothing wrong with the floppy icon. It's perfectly fine. Even if someone doesn't get it, the consistency of its use across apps is enough for its meaning to be clear, which is what really matters.

Before I read the blog post I would have agreed with you. It's pervasive, well understood, and the meaning is clear which you point out is what really matters.

But after reading the article I find myself asking if that's really true? I'm doubting it now. Certainly, the Floppy disk icon is clear to computer users who experienced at least a few years of the 90's or early 2000's. That's becoming less and less a percentage of computer users. For most users, that floppy disk has receded into being just a nonrepresentative shape associated to save.

I think it's that the blog post convinced me to reject nonrepresentative shapes as icons. You can't look at the extremely illustrative menu filled with icons that clearly describe window management actions or text formatting actions - where the icon itself conveys clearly, if abstractly, exactly how reality will look after you take the action - and tell me that a menu filled with random nonillustrative shapes has even a similar experience. I can't shake the idea that the menu icon needs to be more than just a logo or branding - it needs to be self-explaining.

The floppy disk did exactly the above when floppy disks were where the data was actually saved. But in 2025, we have to accept that it no longer illustrates anything. Today its just a nonrepresentative shape.