Modifiers: Icon vs Text vs Icon+Text

[sncbraxsc2]

I'd like to try to gain a better understanding of the community's opinion on this topic, especially with regard to Cherry profile keycaps. Thanks for the poll!

Please participate in the poll and explain your preferences here 

[Benitone]

The more icons, the better.

Text is for those who ignore the meaning of the icons.

[sncbraxsc2]

Text is for those who ignore the meaning of the icons.

Hmm.. I wonder if there exists someone in this hobby that doesn't touch type the modifier keys?

The more icons, the better.

I'd like to point out that when OTD set out to make their most comprehensive set, they included two sets of modifiers - BOTH of which were icon only 




 

[_rubik]

I personally prefer text because I prefer a more unified look -- that said I don't have anything against icons :shrug:

[suicidal_orange]

Big keycaps with a small icon on one side look a bit silly to me, they might look better centred but that's not an option.  I voted for both as that's the opposite of what I dislike but I don't really have a preference and didn't even know which I had on my two main keysets until I looked just now - if the colours are good I'm happy.  The Hyperfuse on this board has some of all three options (though not sure there's room for text on a 1.25 shift?) and that doesn't bother me either.

[Findecanor]

I think some keys are better with icon only and others are better as text only.
Shift, Tab, Backspace and main Enter should have icons, with text being optional.
Control and Alt keys, should have text, with icons being optional.
Escape, Insert,Delete,Home,End,PageUp,PageDown,PrtScr/SysRq, Scroll Lock and Pause/Break are best as text only.

The Caps Lock key should say "Control" or have the ^ symbol. :-ž
... and the Space bar should be blank, even if the keyboard is backlit.

BTW, modifiers should always have the legend aligned in the middle vertically (except Tab which has two symbols!), but could have other alignment on the horizontal.
1×1u keys look best with the text left-aligned inside a box, and then the box centred.
Modifiers on the left look best with the symbol left-aligned, so that all keys on the left edge have the symbols in a single vertical line.
Modifiers on the right look best with the symbols right-aligned, so that all keys on the right edge have the symbols in a single horizontal line.

Hmm.. I wonder if there exists someone in this hobby that doesn't touch type the modifier keys?

On the right bottom row you could have any of: Windows-Menu, Windows-Fn, Fn-Windows or Fn-Menu.
And who knows the order of the Scroll Lock, Pause and Print Screen keys?

[ideus]

I prefer icons. But, set's designers tend to depart from the standard most of the time. The lack of standardization makes icons a bit weird. I also use text legends and they look classy and are more standardized for the sake of meaning-use.

[rowdy]

That image above has modifiers with "Ctrl" and "Alt" written on them.  To me that is text.  The caption states "BOTH of which were icon only".

Also do you want to differentiate between abbreviated text (e.g. "Ctrl") and full text (e.g. "Control")?  I have both (but not on one keyboard at the same time).

What about both on one keycaps?  Mac keyboards (and, by extension, some Mac-specific keycap sets) have, for example, both "Cmd" and that little squiggly symbol on the same keycap.