GNOME documentation on International Concerns

I found these helpful hints on “GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.2″¹:

Sensitivity to cultural and political issues is also an important consideration. Designing icons and sounds, and even choosing colors requires some understanding of the connotations they might have to a user from a different part of the world.

Examples of elements it is best to avoid for these reasons include:

* Pictures of flags or money

* Maps showing political boundaries or contentious location names

* Lists of countries or cities in non-alphabetical order (unless specifically requested or required by the context)

* Icons depicting animals

* Icons depicting only hands or feet

I think the last bullet is rather ironic since GNOME’s logo is a foot. I can understand what they were getting at with the first few bullets but the last two. What is the danger in depicting animals in icons?

1. http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/principles-broad-userbase.html.en [↩]