I once worked on an Optical Image Stabilisation system for mobile phones. I'd updated the stock Android camera app to show some icons from marketing for when the shake compensation was on / off.
The icon for when compensation was on was a shaky camera. When it was off, it was a shaky camera with a line through it...
Except, we asked, wouldn't the other way round make more sense? Doesn't line through shaky camera suggest we're removing the shake?
We ended up using the icons and just colouring them green for "on" and red for "off" and hoping people would figure out what we meant. And, yes, that would still be unhelpful for colour blind users!
This is why this kind of thing should have text (with or without an icon). Just tell me what you're trying to communicate. Yeah I know you have to translate it for other languages, but Microsoft, Samsung, et cetera should be able to afford that.
The icon for when compensation was on was a shaky camera. When it was off, it was a shaky camera with a line through it...
Except, we asked, wouldn't the other way round make more sense? Doesn't line through shaky camera suggest we're removing the shake?
We ended up using the icons and just colouring them green for "on" and red for "off" and hoping people would figure out what we meant. And, yes, that would still be unhelpful for colour blind users!
User interfaces are hard.