Standardised nowhere
24 conventionsThe informal conventions everybody ships, measured against every standard this site holds.
The finding. Fifteen of twenty-four conventions are named by no standard at all — not in the Authoring Practices, not backed by a native primitive, not mentioned in WCAG. The logo that goes home, the gear that opens settings, the asterisk that means required: load-bearing folklore.
Three squares, in order: the Authoring Practices, a native primitive, WCAG. A convention everybody ships and no standard names shows as three empty boxes — fifteen of the twenty-four rows below, and the reason this collection is called what it is. The emptiness is the exhibit.
| Convention | What it means | Named by | Native primitive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asterisk marks required | A star means the field cannot be empty. | — | |
| Cmd-K opens a palette | A keystroke opens a searchable command list. | — | |
| Floppy disk means save | An obsolete storage medium means commit. | — | |
| Gear means settings | A cog opens configuration. | — | |
| Heart means favourite | A heart marks or saves an item. | — | |
| Logo top-left goes home | The mark in the corner is a link to the root. | — | |
| Magnifier means search | A lens icon opens or focuses a search field. | — | |
| Pencil means edit | A pencil enters an editing mode. | — | |
| Pull to refresh | Dragging past the top reloads the list. | — | |
| Red means destructive | Colour alone signals irreversibility. | — | |
| Shake means invalid | Motion signals a rejected entry. | — | |
| Skeletons mean loading | Grey shapes stand in for content not yet there. | — | |
| Slash focuses search | Pressing / jumps to the search field. | — | |
| Swipe left to delete | A lateral drag reveals a destructive action. | — | |
| Trash means delete | A bin icon destroys the object. | — | |
| Bell means notifications | A bell shows pending alerts. | — | |
| Blue underline is a link | Colour and underline together mean navigable. | <a> | |
| Breadcrumbs show position | A trail states where you are in a hierarchy. | — | |
| Escape closes the top layer | The key dismisses the frontmost thing. | — | |
| Hamburger means menu | Three stacked lines open the navigation. | — | |
| Infinite scroll | Content loads as you approach the end. | — | |
| Three dots mean more | An ellipsis reveals secondary actions. | — | |
| Toast then vanishes | A brief message confirms and disappears. | — | |
| X top-right closes | A cross in the corner dismisses the layer. | — |
Source. measured against this site’s own collections · — · retrieved 2026-07-31. This collection is derived · audited.