June 3rd, 2025
4 reactions

The symbolism of the magnifying glass is not universal

Windows 3.0 introduced WinHelp, a program for browsing online help files. The toolbar contained a series of buttons: Index, Back, Browse backward, Browse forward, and Search.

Screen shot of WinHelp 3.0, see description in text

The icon for Index was a tabbed index card. The icon for Back was a trail of footprints. the icon for Browse was a pair of triangles pointing left (back) or right (forward). And the icon for Search was a magnifying glass.

The use of a magnifying glass to mean Search is fairly common nowadays, but back then, it was novel.¹ And the team learned that it was also not universal.

The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is commonly depicted using a magnifying glass to search for clues. He is a well-known character in English literature, but not necessarily in other cultures.

The WinHelp team received a question from one of the overseas offices asking why the icon for Search was a frying pan.

To avoid confusion, they updated the WinHelp program in Windows 3.1 by simply removing the icons entirely.

Screen shot of WinHelp 3.1, see description in text

The icons are all gone. The buttons just read Contents, Search, Back, History and Glossary.

¹ Many Web sites credit NextSTEP for introducing the magnifying glass icon to mean Find. NextSTEP was released on September 18, 1989, and Windows 3.0 was released not long after, on May 22, 1990.

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Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

8 comments

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  • Abigail Brady 2 weeks ago

    I’m particularly enjoying these two Browse buttons and the fact they have different keyboard shortcuts indicated. So I guess one is “previous [in list, not history]” and one is “next”?

  • alan robinson

    No reason why a frying pan couldn’t have come to represent search. Witness the universal save icon, just as common now as when it made a (tiny) amount of sense.

  • Shawn Van Ness 2 weeks ago

    This is very funny and timely to me — just a moment ago I was just struggling to find the search box on the Trello app, and I tapped the big obvious magnifying glass icon. It just made everything bigger. [forehead slap]

  • GL 2 weeks ago

    That version of the magnifying glass looks like it’s pointing downwards and being looked at from below (not something one would do when searching for clues), so its not evoking “search” sounds pretty justified. That makes me think of someone trying to focus the sunlight for fire.

    But the “frying pan” line sent me.

  • Valts Sondors

    It’s curious how the word “online” has evolved over time. I’m still not quite sure what it meant back in the day when Internet access was not common at all. Did it just mean “on your computer”, as opposed to “offline” meaning “a physical book”?

    • Lucas List 2 weeks ago

      In the old days, on line was two words and meant “on the internet”, or “connected to a BBS”. It harkens back to the days when everyone used modems and had to manually call annother computer on the phone line. Off line simply meant off the internet.

      I suppose it could also be used as a code word for calling someone, but I don’t think that was common at all.

    • Peter Cooper Jr.

      I’m guessing that usage in the time period described here might have been derived from earlier times (like mainframes), with “online” meaning “available at any time on your computer” as opposed to something that was archived on tape or only accessible through a batch process or the like.

    • ω

      It used to be the case that you had to establish a communication link through a physical line of some sort. Actual cable lines. You had to get “on the line”. Over time, we just started to say “on line” (preposition and noun) but it eventually morphed into “online” (adjective or adverb, depending).