Comment 32 for bug 407621

Dave Gilbert: So basically we disagree on the weight given to usefulness of an individual icon vs. the weight given to aesthetics of the menu as a whole, and there's no way to argue that convincingly one way or another. If it's any consolation, many of the actions that have highly-recognizable icons (e.g. Play, Pause, Back, Forward, Home) are usually accessed from dedicated buttons rather than the equivalent menu items anyway, so the lack of icons for those menu items will seldom make a difference.

mac_v: I agree on the general point that whether an icon, or a label, or both, is appropriate for a button depends much more on the button than on the user. For example, it would make sense for Yelp's (the help viewer's) toolbar to have icon-only buttons regardless of what your icon/label settings are for any other toolbar. Partly for that reason, I think the "System" > "Preferences" > "Appearance" > "Interface" > "Toolbar button labels" setting is misguided (though any further discussion of that should happen elsewhere). But I also think that it depends not only on the button but also on the window, which is where I have trouble with your example of Back and Forward. For example, Mac OS 8 and 9 used icon-only forward and back buttons in their assistants <http://mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_27/arcellana.html>. But that had a substantial disadvantage: it gave the thing you were most likely to want to click -- the Forward button -- one of the smallest target areas in the window.