Translation of text for icon's inner content

Hi Everyone,

In one of my interaction design projects,we used an info icon (the regular shaped round icon with text ‘i’ written in it) but we came across a situation where QA people raised bugs saying that text inside icon will pose translation problems. The ‘i’ in the icon is a part of the icon and does not change per languages. We support a multiple languages and in some languages alphabet i really looks different. Can anyone help me to undertsand that info icon as we see in informationsal messages do require translation or not?

How is it handled in other softwares - say someone installs office software in chinese or russian language, do they get different looking info icons?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Sumi

I think your QA people are wrong. It’s true that the icon’s design derives from the fact that “i” stands for “information” in English. But this particular icon has for many years been a standard international symbol, and is widely recognised in many languages and cultures.

I don’t know how other software packages deal with the issue, but I stick to the standard symbol in my own applications and sites.

Mike

Thanks Mike! This helps a lot.